


Ice & Fire - Season 1

by witabif



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Physical Abuse, Sibling Incest, Slurs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 03:43:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 37,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10756032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witabif/pseuds/witabif
Summary: The first entry in Ice & Fire - the Game of Thrones rewrite. Lady Catelyn embarks on a journey that forces her out of her comfort zone, while Queen Cersei tries to keep her family - and the kingdom - in one piece.





	1. Cersei I

**Author's Note:**

> A brief explanation:
> 
> The GoT rewrite is exactly what it says on the tin, but it also isn't. This isn't a full rewrite of Game of Thrones, and I'm not doing it to make it a better adaptation of the books. I'm focusing on characters and plotlines I had issues with from the show and making them consistent/make sense in my own eyes (and hopefully yours). I bring in new PoVs when I feel their plot alteration kicks in - hence why s1 only has two.
> 
> These are my general rules for the rewrite:
> 
> 1\. Everything has to make sense,  
> 2\. The events of the show have to happen, unless I can't possibly make them make sense.  
> 3\. Book characters are allowed, but should be kept to a minimum when possible.  
> Missed events due to pacing and character alteration are fine and not in violation of rule 2.  
> Uses dialogue from the show, courtesy of Forever Dreaming - http://transcripts.foreverdreaming.org/viewtopic.php?t=7739
> 
> And that's it! Enjoy Season 1!

The shadows in the Great Hall danced to the rhythm of the candles surrounding the dais. Grey robes swept across floors of veined marble as the Silent Sisters tended to the corpse. Lord Arryn’s stone eyes watched the ceiling with a wide, unending stare, his gaze just as pointed as it was in life. Just as knowing.

Queen Cersei Lannister pulled the heavy black shawl over her shoulders. The heat from the candles did not reach the balcony she stood upon, and the torches on the wall behind her did nothing. Golden hair whipped over her shoulder as a door creaked open. She caught sight of her twin striding forth, and relaxed.

Jaime wore a red leather riding jacket over simple shirt and breeches, in place of the white and gold of the Kingsguard. The torches illuminated the gold embroidery on his collar. Cersei raised an eyebrow. “You’re late,” she said quietly.

Jaime leaned against the railing. “I wanted to change into something more comfortable.” She wondered where his mourning clothes were, but her mood softened as the firelight played in the golden tones of his hair. “How?” he asked, gesturing to the throne room below them.

“A wasting sickness,” she told him. “It took him in only a fortnight.”

“That’s strange…” He trailed off as he gazed down at the throne room. Distant flames reflected in the blue of his eyes. “How does such a thing happen?” He looked up at her again. The ghost of a smirk played on his lips.

Cersei tilted her head slightly. “It is strange,” she agreed, “but I have no mind for illness. You’d do better to ask Maester Pycelle. He was with Lord Arryn in his last days.”

Jaime straightened. “Cersei.”

“What?”

He squinted at her. “You know Jon is dead, don’t you? He isn’t going to rise from that table and tell Robert the things we say here. And the Stranger takes the tongue as dowry,” he added, indicating the grey sisters. “Isn’t that why you called me here?”

“It is, but many have heard the chirps of little birds even here. Either way, I don’t know what happened to our Lord Hand, save what I’ve told you.”

“Tyrion says poison is a woman’s weapon…”

Cersei tightened her lips. “Your little brother says many things.” Was he the one who had planted all those suspicions in Jaime’s head? “I am far from the only woman in this castle. He knows that better than anyone.”

A strange chill settled over her as Jaime eyed her in silence. He had this way of looking at her sometimes, like he was trying to solve a puzzle. She pulled her shawl closer, but did not break her gaze. “Some stranger has done us a kindness, then?” he asked finally.

“It seems that way,” Cersei said with a nod. “Though…” She trailed off as she looked down on the throne room. Shadows waved in the firelight, breathing life into the figures embroidered upon the hunting tapestries King Robert Baratheon loved so much. Deer leapt across fields of shifting green as men chased them on horseback. A pack of wolves crept along behind them, hidden in the dark. “I fear what he may have known.”

“Whatever it was, it died with him, and will be buried in the Vale when he is.”

“And what of Lady Lysa?” she asked then. “Why would she run?”

“Maybe she thought the assassin would come for her and her son next. Or maybe she did it.” Jaime shrugged. “She is half mad and has proof of nothing. No one would believe her.”

“Maybe you’re right…”

Jaime raised an eyebrow. “But?”

She looked at him. “ _But,_ Robert plans to name Eddard Stark as Hand.”

“How do you know that? Did he discuss it with the council?”

“He discusses nothing with the council. I saw the letter he sent to Winterfell myself. He plans to go there after Jon’s funeral.” She nodded toward Arryn’s corpse. “He was their foster, you know, and Stark’s good-brother besides. Robert will believe anything he says, and ask questions after the rest of us are dead.”

“Do you think Arryn’s ghost will whisper secrets in Lord Stark’s ear?” Jaime shook his head. “Dead, Cersei. He is dead. You worry far too much.”

“Because I need to. Someone must.”

He looked up at her. “You think I don’t care?”

“I did not say that.” Jaime’s eyes lingered on her again; this time she broke her gaze, and turned to the Great Hall once more. The stone eyes seemed to dart about in the candlelight, unblinking as they spied her on the balcony. _Dead_ , she reminded herself, _Lord Arryn is dead. The children are alive. Jaime is alive. You are alive._ She laced her arm through her brother’s. _He cannot hurt us._


	2. Catelyn I

Snow fell gently from the cloud covered sky as Catelyn stepped out onto the balcony. Ribbons of white smoke curled up from the chimneys of the winter town beyond Winterfell’s walls. Eddard pulled her close once she reached the railing; she relished in the heat radiating from his body. Her breath turned to mist in the cold air. It was hard to believe that it was still summer.

The yard had been swept clear of snow, but a thin layer of frost was beginning to form over the dirt once more. It crunched under Bran’s feet as he shifted his weight. Ned had given him a bow on his tenth nameday, a tradition amongst the Starks. It didn’t feel like it had been seven years since Robb had gotten his. Now it hung upon the wall in his chambers, small as a child’s toy in his hands.

Bran’s was small as well, but so was he. He seemed to favor her that way, though he had Ned’s brown hair and eyes. He pulled the bowstring taut, aiming for the straw-stuffed target some feet away.

“Easy,” Robb said, kneeling at his younger brother’s side. He looked Bran’s opposite, big as Ned with auburn curls wet with melted snow. He spoke with gentle authority, like his father. “If you pull back too far, you’ll overshoot.”

“Hold your breath,” Jon Snow told him next, his voice quiet. “It’ll steady your hand.” Jon wasn’t hers; he was Eddard’s child with some woman he’d met during the war. Cat didn’t know her name, and Ned would never tell her.

 _He is my blood_ , he said the one time she had found the courage to ask. _That is all that matters._ That much was clear as day. Jon looked a Stark through and through, all dark haired and dark eyed, and he resembled Ned more than Robb ever could. That stung, and again when Sansa was born, Cat’s little mirror. She thanked the gods when her younger children all came with their father’s look.

Catelyn shook her head. Bran inhaled deeply and tried to still his arms. He loosed the arrow… and it sailed right over the target. Mikken the blacksmith jumped as it clattered to the ground in his path.

Little Rickon howled with laughter from the barrel he was perched atop. Robb’s face split into a grin. “That’s what I meant,” he said through a laugh. Bran let out a sigh.

“It was a good try,” Cat told him, a smile tugging at her lips. The color rising in Bran’s cheeks wiped it away. He was only ten, and trying his best. What was so funny about that? Jon caught her gaze then, and washed the joy from his face.

“Which of you was a marksman at ten?” Ned asked sternly, echoing her thoughts. Robb swallowed his laughter, and Rickon pulled his fur cloak up over his face. “Again,” their father declared, clapping his hands together. “He won’t get any better just standing there.”

“When is it my turn?” Rickon asked as Jon went to retrieve the first arrow.

“You’re too small,” Bran answered as he nocked the second. “You’re only a baby.”

“I am not!” Rickon shouted back. “And I’ll be ten soon, on my next nameday!”

“You have four more before then,” Ned corrected gently.

“Don’t rush,” Cat added with a smile.

Bran aimed at the target once more, and Robb adjusted his arms. Before he could release the arrow, another flew out from below the balcony. It ruffled Bran’s hair as it zoomed past his head and embedded itself in the bull’s-eye. Rickon squealed with delight.

The three older boys whipped around, and Robb’s jaw dropped at what he saw. Cat gripped the railing and looked over herself. Her youngest daughter was standing there with a bow as big as she was. Cat’s eyes widened; the girls were supposed to be in stitching lessons.

“Arya!” Bran huffed out. Arya only curtseyed in response. Bran shoved his bow into Jon’s arms and chased his sister out of the courtyard.

Cat shook her head again as Ned told his eldest sons to straighten up. “Mordane spends so much time with Sansa that Arya seems to slip from her view,” he said to her. “Harwin says the cooks call her Arya Underfoot. Did you know that?”

“I did,” Cat admitted. “She is only eleven, and has a child’s fancies. I’ll speak to the septa.”

“Though, I do wonder where she learned to handle a bow like that.” Cat looked up at him, taken aback. Ned laughed. “She is quite good.” Catelyn smiled despite herself.

“Lord Stark!”

Ser Rodrik ascended the stairs at the other end of the balcony. Theon Greyjoy, her husband’s ward, had followed him up. Cassel ran his hand over the white whiskers framing his face the way he did when he was nervous. “There’s been a raven from Castle Cerwyn,” he told them. “A man of the Night’s Watch has been taken in the hills.”

“Seems his watch has ended,” Theon said quietly. The furtive look in his green eyes matched the smirk on his lips.

Cat inhaled sharply. “A deserter of the Night’s Watch is no joke,” she reprimanded. Theon’s lips thinned, and he glanced down at the courtyard.

“She is right. The punishment for desertion is death,” Ned ruled. “We will leave for Castle Cerwyn at once.”

“Will we be accompanying you, my lord?” Rodrik asked.

“Of course, and Robb and Jon as well. Tell them, will you?” he said to Theon.

Greyjoy nodded. “Yes, my lord.”

Ned looked down as they moved away. Cat placed her gloved hands on his shoulders. “What is it, dear?”

“Bran should come,” he said, turning to her.

She straightened. “He shouldn’t see such things. Ten is too young.”

“But he won’t be ten for long, and winter is coming.” She shuddered lightly at the sound of the Stark words. He pulled her into his arms. “He needs to understand why I swing the sword myself.”

She looked up into his deep brown eyes. “He does,” she agreed. He smiled, and kissed her at the base of her jaw. The air was cold on her face as he left.

Lord Eddard took his leave of them that afternoon with twenty Winterfell men. Cat fastened Bran’s fur cloak with a silver pin wrought in the shape of the Stark direwolf. “Father says I’ll be allowed to ride a real horse soon,” he relayed from the back of his pony.

“I can already sit a horse,” Arya told her, pulling at the cloth flowers sewn to the collar of her dress. Most of them had already come loose. “Why can’t I go?”

“This is men’s work,” Sansa reminded her. Then she spoke to her father, “I know you will judge this man fair and true.” She went to Ned and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. She was getting so tall.

“Be good,” she told Bran, smoothing down his hair. “Listen to what your father says. You have a lot to learn.”

He looked up at her as she straightened herself. “I will.”

She kissed him on the temple, then moved to her eldest son, already sat high on the back of his horse. She took his hand discreetly. “Watch your brother,” she told him. He gave her a single nod. Jon averted his gaze as she moved away.

“We will not be long,” Ned told her. “We should be back on the morrow.”

“I will pray for your safe return, my lord.” With that, she watched with the girls as the small party traveled through the squat stone archway, and toward the outer walls.

“Why does Daddy do the executions himself?” Arya asked as Cat led them back to the Great Keep. “Why doesn’t he have a headsman, like the king?”

“That’s the way the First Men did it,” Sansa informed her. She combed water droplets from her long red hair with her fingers. “The Starks are the blood of the First Men.”

“I _know,_ ” Arya told her, rolling her eyes, “but why? Why did they do it like that?”

Cat looked at both of her girls. Sansa was half a woman, even at thirteen, and Arya had somehow taught herself to shoot an arrow. Where had the time gone? It seemed like just yesterday she had arrived at Winterfell with Robb in her arms…

“The First Men had a saying,” she started as she removed Arya’s cloak, “‘whoever passes the sentence should swing the sword’. They believed that… if they sent other men to kill one they had condemned, they would become too comfortable with ordering a man’s death. Your father still believes that, and you would do well to remember when you are both women grown, with husbands and sons of your own.”

“I will,” Sansa answered solemnly. Arya blinked a few times before nodding along.

“Lady Stark!”

Cat looked back and saw Maester Luwin, who had stopped under the arch he was passing by. “It’s good that I’ve found you. A raven has arrived, from King’s Landing.” He came to her and handed over the roll of parchment. The seal pressed into the yellow wax bore a stag reared up on its hind legs, a crown encircling its throat.

“That’s the king’s sigil,” Sansa breathed out.

“Are these summons?” Catelyn asked as she broke the seal. When she read the letter however, written in Robert’s own hand, she saw that they were not the ones who would be traveling.


	3. Cersei II

It felt like they had been traveling for years.

Cersei’s eyes opened as the wheelhouse hit another bump. The scene in front of her had played a million times during their trip. Her attendants were chatting at the other end of the cushioned bench she lounged upon, glancing up every so often to see if she needed anything. Myrcella slept peacefully with her head on Cersei’s shoulder despite the bumpy ride. Tommen was on the opposite side of the cab playing a clapping game with his page, his round face red with laughter. Senelle did a double take when she noticed that her queen was awake, but Cersei put up a hand to signal that she needed no assistance.

The cold northern wind was audible through the wheelhouse walls. Cersei pulled a fur throw around Myrcella, then covered herself with it as well. Joffrey should have been in there with them. He had insisted on riding his horse the entire way, and Joff was hard to sway once he set his mind to something. She had tried to warn him about the harsh weather in the North, but Robert had allowed it, and that was that.

Cersei shook her head. She stroked Myrcella’s hair, and her frustration began to fade away. She was such a beautiful child, her little princess, with lovely blue eyes and soft golden ringlets. She looked like her grandmother, where the boys more closely resembled their grandfather. The gods were good to bring Lady Joanna’s beauty back into the world.

The back corner of the wheelhouse dipped as it passed over some hole, and gave Cersei a start. “Your Grace…” Senelle began.

“I am fine,” the queen sighed out, massaging her neck. Myrcella’s eyes fluttered open. _Curse these Northern roads._ “Did you sleep well?” Cersei asked quietly.

Myrcella nodded as she blinked herself awake. “I had a dream. I saw the Dragonknight, riding a white horse in a fire. There was a woman with him, holding a baby. I think he saved Queen Rhaella from Summerhall.”

Cersei smiled. “No doubt he would have, had he lived at the time.” In truth, the Dragonknight had been eighty years dead when the tragedy struck, a contemporary of the fourth Aegon Targaryen rather than the fifth. Cersei had dreams of Ser Aemon when she was a girl as well – the greatest knight in the Seven Kingdoms, the man all others measured themselves against, doomed to love a woman he could never have, his sweet sister Queen Naerys. His songs were full of gallantry and melancholy.

Years ago, when he was Hand of the King, her father held a tourney in Lannisport to honor the birth of Prince Viserys, the second son of King Aerys the Mad. Cersei’s Aunt Dorna had it from her uncle that Lord Tywin wanted to betroth her to the king’s eldest son, Rhaegar. Cersei had spent the tourney giddy in love as her prince dominated the lists, only bested by the Sword of the Morning, Ser Arthur Dayne. He sang a song of Ser Aemon that night with his harp; it was so sad and lovely that Cersei was moved to tears.

King Aerys then denied her father’s request, killing her dreams of becoming a Targaryen princess in one sure stroke. She liked to think that Jaime had killed him the same way. _Some small justice._

“Your father is my dragonknight now,” Cersei said wistfully.

Myrcella looked up at her. “Father is a knight?”

Cersei blinked. “Not truly, but he was before he became king.” You couldn’t tell by looking at him now. When she and Robert had wed he was still a warrior, like something out of the songs made flesh and bone. In his armor he was a giant, and his antlered helm was his crown. Then he gained a true crown, and turned into a fat old drunkard – though he’d always had a taste for alcohol. She had learned that on her wedding night.

Cersei brushed the hair out of Myrcella’s eyes. They were so clear and bright. “One day you will have your own dragonknight,” she claimed, “and he will sweep you off your feet, the way mine did.” Myrcella smiled.

The wheelhouse began to slow, and Cersei looked up. “Another stop?” she asked.

Senelle got to her feet, placing a hand on the wall to steady herself. “We are approaching the castle, my queen.”

Cersei sat up. “Very well. Come, we need to make ourselves presentable.”

Lady Jocelyn Swyft came to her and straightened out her hair, while Senelle and Dorcas tended to the children. As the wheelhouse came to a stop, Cersei slipped on a heavy coat trimmed with fox fur over her gown of pale blue velvet. She pulled it tight as the doors opened; the frigid air cut through the damp warmth like a knife.

Cersei gazed up at Winterfell as Ser Meryn Trant helped her down from the carriage. _Winter has already touched this place._ Pale clouds blanketed the sky above the stone walls, and snow piled atop the battlements like powdered sugar on some great grey cake. Tommen drew the fur collar of his cloak up to his ears as the wind played at his hair. Myrcella hid her gloved hands inside her sleeves.

Jaime took her by the arm and led her through the hundreds of Robert’s riders. “Is Joffrey well?” she asked, looking for her eldest son.

“Very,” he answered. “He cannot take his eyes off Sansa.” Cersei looked up at him, but forgot what she was going to say. Her twin looked a hero in his armor, tall and lean. He favored their father that way, just like Joffrey did. Strands of Jaime’s hair danced in the wind, and a flush was creeping up his cheeks from the cold. Then they stopped. Cersei blinked, and looked forward.

The Starks were lined up in front of the castle doors with all their attendants, wreathed in furs of grey and white. Jaime released Cersei’s arm, and she stepped forward with a gentle smile upon her face. Lord Eddard knelt and kissed the sapphire ring she wore on her right hand. Little had changed since she’d seen him last; he’d only grown older, his face more lined. Lady Catelyn curtseyed gracefully, and her children followed suit.

Ser Meryn came forth with the royal children, and both families were formally introduced. She found Sansa quick enough, by following Joffrey’s eyes. She was near his height, bright and beautiful. She and her elder brother Robb both resembled their mother, with the auburn hair and big blue eyes that the Tullys were known for. Arya had Catelyn’s eyes as well, but she and her younger brothers all favored Ned.

Once they were well met, Robert turned to Ned and said, “Take me down to your crypts, Eddard. I would pay my respects.”

Cersei straightened. Lord Eddard’s sister had been Robert’s betrothed before her death. Seventeen years on, and he still loved her. She might have thought that beautiful once, maybe if it had been one of Rhaegar’s songs, but Robert was her husband now, and Lyanna was dead. It was no wonder their marriage had gone so cold; the wolf maid’s spectre lay between them.

“We have been riding since dawn,” Cersei started, choosing her words carefully. “Surely you would like to freshen yourself first. The dead may wait.”

“Ned,” Robert said impatiently. He didn’t even look at her. Eddard did, but he called for the lanterns all the same. He could not deny his king.

Lady Catelyn took command in his place. “Your Grace, our servants will show you to your quarters,” she said, gesturing toward a grey building with a slate roof on the other side of the yard. “You will have the Guest House all to yourselves.”

“That is most gracious,” Cersei responded with a nod. Jaime took her arm once more as they were shown the way.

“Where’s the Imp?” she heard little Arya whisper aloud.

“Will you shut up?” Sansa snapped back, shushing her.

Cersei inhaled deeply. Jaime looked over his shoulder at the giant party filling the yard. “We may have lost him in the village,” he told her quietly. “There was a brothel we passed on the high road… You know how he is.”

“I do,” Cersei said through her teeth. “Go find your brother.” Jaime nodded and left her side. There was too much riding on this visit. She would not let anyone ruin it.


	4. Catelyn II

Catelyn’s heart was pounding.

Another summer snow was falling outside, but her bedchamber was red and warm. She could feel the water from the hot springs pulsing beneath the grey stone – or maybe it was the beating of Ned’s heart as she lay upon his chest. It felt like her body was vibrating. _Again_ , she thought as Ned began to toy with her hair. _Take me again. Let me give you another son._

Cat’s hand began to slide down Ned’s bare chest when he said, “I cannot deny him.”

She blinked slowly, and looked at his face. “If Robert will take a no from anyone, it’s you. You’re closer to him than his own brothers.”

“All the more reason for him to be wounded,” Ned countered. “Robert has changed, Cat. If I deny him, he will begin to suspect our loyalty. I can’t risk that.” She let out a sigh. “This is not something I want, but it’s something I must do. He needs me.”

She was forced to move as Ned rose from the bed, leaving her to the furs. “Your children need you,” she told him. _And me as well._ “I cannot possibly raise the boys by myself, it isn’t proper.”

He opened one of the windows, and gazed out over castle. Cold air cut through the room and washed over his nakedness. He was still as stone. Cat pulled the covers to her neck. “Robb and Jon are already men grown,” Ned said. “Bran and Rickon follow whatever they do. And Theon is like a brother to them all.”

But Robb was not ready to be a lord just yet. Even at seventeen, there was still something of the child in him. And Jon… Theon had done little to earn her trust over the years. They had always known him to be mischievous, but she sensed something deeper in that ever-present smirk. The idea of those three with domain over the younger boys filled her with unease.

“Robb is not their father,” Cat told him. Ned glanced over his shoulder, but said nothing. “And there is still Arya. She won’t have many companions if Sansa is worlds away in King’s Landing. I don’t intend for them to grow further apart.”

“Neither do I,” Ned agreed. “That’s why I’m taking Arya with me.” Cat sat up, the covers falling to her waist. Gods knew Arya could use the polish of a southern court, but she was only eleven. A gust of cold air filled the room as the wind blew by. Catelyn shivered, and pulled the fur over her bare breasts once more.

There was a knock on the door before either of them could speak. Ned looked over his shoulder again. “Desmond, I told you we were not to be disturbed.”

“Maester Luwin is here,” Desmond answered through the door. “He says it’s urgent, my lord.” Cat and Ned looked at each other.

“A moment.” Ned moved to the wardrobe for a robe, while Cat retrieved her nightgown from where it had pooled on the floor. Once they were decent, he said, “Let him come.”

The heavy door creaked open, and the grey maester was let inside. Firelight glinted off the chain of multicolored links around his thin neck. “My apologies, Lord Stark,” said Luwin. He held out a wooden box, a case of some sort. “This came for Lady Catelyn.”

“Me?” She got to her feet, the skirt of her nightgown fluttering down over her legs. The box was heavy in her hands, made of fine wood. When she opened it, there was a glass lens inside, for a telescope.

“It is Myrish in make,” Luwin told her. “They use the same at the Citadel, though this is much smaller.”

“It’s finely made,” Cat said, running her finger around the edge. The glass was clear, and free of scratches. There was no tint when she raised it to the light of the fire, no ghosts or fingerprints; only the flames stared back. “I don’t know what use I would have for it.”

Luwin nodded. “I thought the same. I had assumed it was for the observatory, but there was more. If you look inside the box, you will see it…” She gave him the lens and inspected the box itself. It was lined with fine black velvet. Her nail caught at a juncture between the wall and the bottom as she felt it, and the floor began to rise. “I came upon it by chance,” he finished. She pulled it out and found a note inside, folded.

“Who sent this?” Ned asked as she lifted it out. Her name was written upon it in a familiar hand. She gave Luwin the box as if in a trance. The note was sealed with blue wax, stamped with the image of a falcon flying beside a crescent moon.

“I do not know,” Luwin admitted. “It was left in the observatory as I napped. My servants saw no one, but it must have been delivered by someone in the king’s party. We’ve had no other visitors from the south.”

“The south?” Ned repeated.

Cat was the one that answered. “The Eyrie,” she told him. “This is from Lysa.” A lens was an instrument to help one see. _What do you want to show us, sister?_

“She remained in King’s Landing, last we heard.”

“Perhaps I should take my leave of you,” Luwin began.

 “Stay,” Cat told him. “We may have need of your council.” She unfolded the paper, but it was blank. Lysa had taken no chances.

Ned inhaled sharply. “What is the meaning of this?” he asked as Cat moved to the hearth. She kneeled by the fire. Her heartbeat quickened as the words appeared in its light. Once she was done reading, she threw the paper to the flames. “Cat?” Ned called.

“Lysa fled the capitol in the night, fearing for herself and her son.” Cat stood once more. “She says… she says Jon Arryn was murdered.”

The color drained from Ned’s face. “Who?”

“The Lannisters,” she told him. His face darkened. “Lysa says it was poison that caused his wasting sickness… but she cannot know this for true. She is no maester.”

“But I am,” Luwin said. “I see it now, clear as day. It was not right for the illness to take him so quickly.”

Ned cursed under his breath. “You’re right. I should have known.”

Catelyn looked between the two of them. “But Jon had grown old…” He had been missing half his teeth when he married Lysa, and that was seventeen years ago.

“They said he had been in good health,” Luwin relayed. “Even at his age, he would not have wasted away in a fortnight.”

Cat let out a sigh, but she knew he was right. Her sister was impulsive, and changeable, but she must have known what it would’ve meant for her message to fall into the wrong hands; elsewise, she wouldn’t have gone through the trouble to hide it.

“My lady, it would be wise for Lord Eddard to find the truth of this,” the maester continued. “King Robert may be in grave danger. His guard is filled with Lannister men-at-arms, and the Kingslayer still serves in the Kingsguard. Even his wife…”

“I know what Cersei is,” said Cat. _But why?_ Why would they do it? It was Jon who had arranged Robert’s marriage to Cersei in the first place. Lord Tywin had always been a powerful man, but it was Jon who had made his daughter the queen. “What reason did they have to hate Lord Arryn?”

“That is what I intend to discover,” Ned answered dourly. Cat inhaled deeply, but said nothing. “Thank you, Luwin. I should like to speak to my wife alone now.”

The maester nodded again, placing the box on a bedside table before taking his leave. Cat opened it, staring at the lens nestled in the bed of velvet. _The Others take my sister,_ she thought grimly, but then she rescinded the curse. _They are trying._

After a moment, Ned spoke. “We should not give them any reason to suspect.” His tone was gentle. “I must not keep Robert waiting.”

She turned toward him, tears stinging at her eyes. “Ned I… I can’t send you into the lion’s jaws. I can’t.”

“We have no choice, Catelyn, don’t you see?” He took her face in his hands. “Robert is like a brother to me, you said it yourself. Am I to leave my brother in that pit of vipers? I can find Jon’s killer and protect our king, as well as your sister. The Hand has that power.”

But Cat’s mind had turned to the direwolf. Robb and Bran had found it on the journey back from Castle Cerwyn, dead in the snow with a stag’s antler in its throat. Its pups roamed the castle beside the children now. _The Red Keep is not your place,_ she thought… But it would do no good to bring that up. Ned took no stock in omens. Besides, if Robert had truly changed, the Lannisters might turn him against them, and make the portent so. Cat took his hands in hers. “What of the children?” she asked. “Rickon is too young to travel so far.”

“I agree. He will be better with you. Robb will stay as well, to rule in my stead. There must always be a Stark in Winterfell. Luwin will lend his council, as always, but he will need your voice as well. The house will run smooth between you three.” His words were not a question, but he looked to Cat, asking. She nodded. “Arya and Sansa shall come with me, and Bran as well.”

Cat’s stomach turned to knots. Bran looked the most like Ned of their children, and her darling girls… “I couldn’t bear it.”

“The distance between Robb and Joffrey is long. Bran can bridge that gap, and he will make a good companion for Tommen. Sansa is already smitten with Joff, and it’s my hope that Myrcella will grow close to both of our girls.”

“Yes…” she agreed. Her heart didn’t want to, but peace between the children meant peace between their houses.

“There is nothing for Jon at court,” Ned continued. “The people will mock him for his parentage. He must stay here.” Cat’s mouth dried out. Every time she looked at the boy, she was reminded of her husband’s infidelity, of that woman whose name she would never learn. Ned couldn’t do that to her. “He and Robb are close. It will be better this way.” He asked without asking again, but she couldn’t… she couldn’t.

“The Night’s Watch,” she finally spat out. “Benjen had said…” Ned’s expression almost turned to hurt. “I do not lie!”

He stared at her, silent a moment, before he said, “I know you don’t.”

“He is a man grown,” she echoed. “He has made a choice.” Benjen had said that Jon was more than willing to go, and the Watch’s vows would keep him from fathering sons who might contest her grandchildren for Winterfell… _The boy has haunted me long enough_. Maybe he would rise high, and make that nameless woman proud.

“I will see,” Ned said finally. He took her into his arms. She buried herself in his warmth. She didn’t know when she would feel it again. “Be strong,” he murmured into her hair, “for Rickon, and Robb.”

“I will try,” she told him, tears threatening her again. _But who will be strong for me?_


	5. Cersei III

Cersei gasped as she opened her eyes. The walls of her chambers in the Guest House met her, but the room from her dream was fresh in her mind. It was an old place, ruined by a strike of lighting years and years ago. Her hands left prints in the thick layer of dust on the cold stone floor. The boy upon the windowsill was just a silhouette in the grey sunlight, a golden hand around his throat…

There was a howl outside the walls, and Cersei sat up. Four days had passed since they’d meant to leave for King’s Landing. Four days had passed since little Brandon had taken that dreadful fall… since he had been pushed from the tower. Another howl pierced the air, and a chill ran down her spine. _Damned wolves._

There was a knock at the door. “Your Grace?”

“I am awake, Jocelyn.” Her throat felt like it was covered in paper. The door creaked open, and the girl crept inside. Jocelyn was a cousin of hers, a timid little thing with dark hair and hazel eyes – no Lannister by blood, but her uncle’s niece through marriage. “Are the children abed?” Cersei asked.

“No, my queen,” Jocelyn answered. She gave Cersei a glass of lemon water. “Tommen and Myrcella have gone to break their fast, and Joffrey is in the yard with Sandor Clegane.”

Cersei swallowed the liquid in her mouth. Now her throat felt like it was covered in slime. She hoped she wasn’t catching cold. “Come, open these curtains. What is my brother up to?”

“I’m not sure where Lord Tyrion is,” Jocelyn answered as she threw back the drapes. Grey sunlight filled the room, filtering down through a layer of cottony clouds. The godswood spread out below the window, a waving sea of dark leaves. The weirwood burst at its center, reaching toward the sky with blood-red hands.

Cersei shivered as she got to her feet. “Help me dress. And I had meant Ser Jaime.”

Jocelyn lowered her eyes. “Oh. Cousin Jaime has gone to the morning room as well.”

Cersei chose a dress of pale green with long trumpet sleeves, and a heavy velvet wrap embroidered with vines of spring flowers. The Guest House was perpetually warmed by the hot springs beneath it, but that did little for her at the moment.

Jocelyn led her down to the morning room, on the first floor. The servants bowed as she entered the small hall. A tapestry on the wall depicted the Stark direwolf dashing across the barren fields of the North, its teeth bared to attack some unseen prey. Her family was seated around the single table at the head of the room, under a window of leaden glass depicting a rose with blue petals.

Tommen and Jaime sat on the bench with their backs to her. Myrcella was opposite them between the two high backed chairs meant for the king and queen. The princess noticed her mother and smiled. The sight of it lifted Cersei’s spirits.

“How are my darlings this morning?” she asked, ruffling Tommen’s hair. He shied away and laughed. She took the chair on her daughter’s left. The other remained empty.

“Good,” Tom and Myrcella answered at the same time.

“Very,” Jaime added, taking a heel of bread from a platter.

Cersei narrowed her eyes as she began to spoon chilled fruit onto the plate in front of her. “I should like some eggs with this,” she told a nearby servant. He bowed and moved to obey.

“Surely you would like something more filling?” Jaime asked.

“This will be fine,” she said before bringing an apple slice to her mouth.

Jaime looked at her in that way, like he was trying to decipher her words. “I swear I have not seen you eat a square meal in days. Are you well?”

 _Of course I’m not,_ her mind answered, though she said nothing at first. How had she come to bear all the weight? Even the night after it happened, he had been none too perturbed. “How could you be so stupid?” she had asked, pacing the length of her chambers. Her voice was quiet and shaky with panic. “He is only ten. You could have scared him into silence. What were you thinking?”

“Of us,” he answered. “Now we know the boy will tell them nothing.” She stopped pacing when she reached the window again. The godswood was a void in the dark of night. Direwolves chorused beneath the canopy, as they had for most of the day. “Come now, Cersei. Robert will be with the Starks all night. Let us finish the business we started in that tower. You’ll feel better about this, in the morning.”

She looked back at him. That smirk graced his lips as he held out his arms. She pursed her own. “Are you mad?”

Jaime let out an exasperated sigh. “How would you have me ‘silence’ him? What should I have done?”

 “I don’t… I don’t know. Anything but that.”

Jamie eyed her in his way then too. “He will not wake,” he declared, getting to his feet, “and if he does, I’ll kill him.”

Her eyes went wide as he approached her. “Jaime… he’s just a boy.” She jerked away as he wrapped his arms around her. “Let me go.”

“Never,” he said, pulling her close. He thrust his leg between hers, and she let out a sharp gasp. She closed her eyes and leaned into him as wetness threatened between her thighs. “I’ll kill them all,” he murmured into her ear, “until you and I are the only people left in the world.” And then they had finished their business from the tower.

Cersei shook her head at the table. Maybe men did not feel shame as women did. She finished chewing her apple slice before she spoke again. “I am fine, but I thank you for your concern, brother. Where is Robert?”

“He is with Lord and Lady Stark,” Jaime told her. She had seen little and less of her husband over the days. He had taken the Starks’ grief to heart.

“Will Bran be alright?” Tommen asked them.

Cersei looked down. Bran had fallen from a height that most could not hope to survive. “I don’t know,” she admitted.

“Will… will he die?” Myrcella’s voice was quiet with fear, and worry clouded Tommen’s features. Cersei’s stomach knotted up. The Mother had blessed her babies with big hearts, and they had come to love Bran during their stay in the North. She didn’t want to upset them.

“Apparently not.”

They all looked up at the sound of the new voice. Tyrion sauntered in, his dusky hair askew, probably from tumbling with some whore. He was a little thing with stunted legs and a heavy skull. It was easy to forget that he was her brother sometimes, and not some cousin like Jocelyn, but beneath that heavy brow his eyes were the same blue as their mother’s.

The servant returned and sat the eggs on the table in front of her. “Give me two of those little fish,” Tyrion ordered, “and a mug of dark beer to wash it all down. And bacon, burned black.” The servant nodded and left again.

“What did you mean,” Cersei asked, “about Brandon?”

Tyrion sat himself between Jaime and Tommen. “I went by the sick room just last night. Maester Luwin says the boy has suffered a grievous injury to his back, and his legs are shattered. He will never walk again, but he may yet live.” He shrugged. “Only the gods know for certain. All the rest of us can do is pray.” The children’s faces brightened. Tyrion bringing good news. That was a rare occasion.

Jaime cleared his throat uncomfortably as he grabbed another piece of bread. “It is cruel to let the boy linger in such pain,” he said as he dug his knife into the butter. “If he lives, he will be a cripple, a grotesque. Give me a clean death any day.”

“Speaking for the grotesques, I’d have to disagree.” Tyrion picked up an apple and polished it on his shirt. “Death is so final, whereas life is full of possibility. I hope the boy wakes.” He punctuated his words by crunching through the apple’s red flesh loudly. “I should like to hear what he has to say.”

Silence fell between them after that. Cersei’s stomach squeezed, but she forced herself to eat. For a while the only sound was chewing, and flatware clattering against plates. Cersei was the first to speak again. “Have you seen anything of Joffrey?” she asked Tyrion. “He has made himself scarce these past four days.”

A look of triumph flashed across Tyrion’s face, but left as quickly as it’d come. “I spoke to him before I came here, as it turns out. He was on his way to the sick room.” That was good. Joffrey didn’t always know when to be kind, and she had begun to worry that he was avoiding the Starks. The servant returned once more with Tyrion’s meal. “Oh, good. By chance, do you know when you will be heading south?”

“I don’t,” she answered truthfully. “It is hard to tell, with Brandon indisposed…” Then she looked up. “What do you mean, ‘you’?”

Jaime looked down at him. “Do you intend to stay? Here?”

“No,” Tyrion answered bluntly before taking a bite of his bacon. “What I intend is to visit the Wall. Benjen is to return soon, and young Jon Snow is taking his vows. I’m going to go with them.”

Cersei put down her fork. “Have you gone mad?”

“Where's your sense of wonder?” Tyrion asked with a laugh. “The greatest structure ever built, guarded by the intrepid men of the Night's Watch. And beyond it lies the wintry abode of the White Walkers.”

Jaime gave him an incredulous look, but he smiled. “Don’t tell me you mean to take the black?”

“And go celibate?” Tyrion asked back. “The whores would go begging from Dorne to Casterly Rock. I would not inflict that on them.” Cersei frowned as he took a long swallow of his beer. “I just want to climb to the top of the Wall, and piss off the edge of the world.”

Jaime snorted, but Cersei sighed in disgust. She had suddenly remembered why she misliked her dwarf brother so much. “How many times have I told you not to speak such filth in front of my children? Tommen, Myrcella, come now.” She got to her feet, and swept toward the door.


	6. Catelyn III

It had taken all her will not to scream.

Bran was draped across Ser Rodrik’s arms, his eyes closed. The hair at the back of this head was matted with blood, dirt, and ice. “What’s happened?” she asked, half breathless. “What is this?” A howl punctuated her query. Bran did not stir.

Maester Luwin took her by the arms as Cassel moved toward the stairs with her son in his own. “They found him at the foot of the broken tower,” he told her quietly as he led her the same way. “I fear… he has fallen.” Cat felt the blood drain from her face. She had been dreading this day for years, since Bran had first taken to the walls. “Thank the gods for that wolf, else who knows how long it might have been until… forgive me, my lady. You should not like to hear that.”

They laid him on a bed in a tower room, and buried him beneath a sea of furs and sheets. Catelyn spent the rest of the day weeping in a chair in the corner as the maester took care of him. She could barely stop her tears long enough to pray for her son’s life. Once the hunting party returned Ned had joined them, and Robert as well; the king would not be removed from his friend’s side.

Bran did not open his eyes on the second day. A stream of visitors came through the room to share in their grief. The queen came first, and Ser Jaime as well. Robert would not leave with her when prompted. Prince Tommen and Princess Myrcella came, and the young prince stayed a while. Arya did as well, and Robb too, all of Bran’s siblings. Even Theon and Lord Tyrion came to give their condolences.

“Is he…?” she had begun that night, her throat still thick from crying. “Will he…?”

“Sleeping,” Maester Luwin said. “It is like sleep, only deeper. I do not know when he will open his eyes, but he is still with us.” She leaned into Ned’s chest, and her tears fell anew.

She began her weaving on the third day. When she was a girl, her mother would make prayer wheels, with figures of the Seven made in cloth and wood. She would start with the one she needed most, then work her way around to the other six, always ending with the Stranger. Cat had made her first one when her mother passed in the childbed, beseeching the Father to judge Lady Minisa true and fair. She often made them for her father as well, asking the Warrior to give Lord Hoster strength in battle.

This time, she called on the Mother first, begging her for mercy on her little Bran. Cat ordered Septon Chayle to collect the wood for her, so she wouldn’t have to leave Bran’s side. Rickon had fallen asleep in her lap, besides.

Lord Tyrion came again that night, as Luwin was doing another examination. The maester told them that Bran’s leg bones were shattered, and his spine broken. “If he wakes,” he said, and she had noted his ‘if’, “he will not be able to walk.” Broken, he was, like the tower from which he had fallen. She had no tears to give then, and instead turned back to weaving the Mother’s skirts, refusing to follow Ned to bed.

On the morning of the fourth day Prince Joffrey came and offered them his prayers. Catelyn was only vaguely aware of the happenings after that. Ned came around midday, she remembered, and Robert with him. Luwin fed Bran his liquid meal of milk and honey, as he always did. Elsewise, she and her son were left alone. The room grew quiet. All she heard were the crack of twigs, and Bran’s shallow breaths.

It was a wolf’s howl that jerked her attention away from the Smith, his figure still missing its legs. The howls had grown less frequent over the days, but they never stopped, not fully. Bran’s chest rose high beneath his sheets.

Catelyn set the figures down and flexed her stiff fingers. A plate of food had grown cold on the table beside Bran’s bed. She stood, holding the wall for balance. Her joints creaked as she ambled over and broke the heel of bread in half. With her free hand she felt her son’s brow. He was warm, but not warm enough.

A knock drew Catelyn’s eyes upward. Queen Cersei stood in the doorway, a Kingsguard knight left in the hall behind her. “Your Grace…” Cat said as she straightened. She was suddenly aware of the dressing gown and nightclothes she wore despite the daytime hour. “I might have dressed.” Her hair must have looked a fright as well…

“Please,” Cersei told her with a gentle smile. “This is your home, I am your guest.” Her skirts swept the floor as she moved to the bed. Cat recalled the night she had gotten Lysa’s letter. _I know what she is._ The queen’s gown was a gentle shade of green, and her long hair cascaded over her shoulders in lovely golden waves. A chain of white gold clinked around her neck as she moved. _Are you a killer?_ she thought as she watched her queen. _Did you kill my goodbrother?_

“Such a sweet boy,” Cersei murmured, staring down at Bran. “Tommen asks about him every day, and prays for him just as often. He will be a goodbrother to my precious Joffrey when he and Sansa are wed…” She trailed off, and stroked Bran’s hair. “I had another son, before Tommen, and Joffrey. He was a beautiful thing, hair black as Robert’s, and he had his eyes too… He was our joy, a fighter, just like your little Brandon. He tried to beat the fever that took him.”

Cat inhaled slowly. “I never knew… Robert never said…”

“He doesn’t like to think about it. The grief nearly drove him mad, and me as well. He beat his fists bloody upon the walls. He had to hold me as the Silent Sisters took him. Our precious boy… a bird without his wings.” She looked at Cat, the corners of her stony blue eyes wet. “No mother should have to bury her child. I pray the Mother will give Brandon back to you.”

Catelyn was nearly speechless. She opened her mouth, but all she could do was gape. “I am grateful,” she finally got out.

Cersei nodded. “Maybe she will listen, this time. I will take my leave of you, Lady Catelyn.” Cat stared wide-eyed as the queen swept from the room.

Bran did not wake on the fifth day, or the sixth. “It may be a while yet,” Luwin told her with a sigh. “Yours has been a devoted vigil, my lady, but the worst will be behind us soon. Surely you would like a rest.” Catelyn declined, and returned to her weaving. The wheel was almost done, besides.

It was the tenth day when Ned told her that Robert was leaving for the south, and he was still going along. “How can you leave, when he is like this?” she asked, clutching the finished prayer wheel in her hands. The Mother pressed into one of her palms, the Stranger into the other.

“We spoke of this,” Ned told her. “I must go, it’s for our safety.”

She looked down at Bran in the bed. “Your brother rode to King’s Landing once.” Cat had been betrothed to him, before the war – before he was killed. They had named Bran in his honor. “He never came back.”

Ned kissed her at the base of her jaw. “A different time. A different king.” But Cat remembered the direwolf in the snow, with the antler in its throat. She took her chair and moved it to Bran’s bedside.

The party left on the thirteenth day. The girls came to see her and Bran before they departed. Sansa prayed with her at his bedside. “What’s this?” she asked, picking up the prayer wheel from the bedpost.

“The Seven,” she told her daughter. “I made them.”

Sansa ran a thumb over the figure of the Maiden. “I will make one too. I’ll learn, and I’ll pray that they’ll bring him back to us.” Sansa threw her arms around Catelyn’s neck. “When I’m queen, I will come to see you as often as I want. Joff will do it, for me. I won’t wait seventeen years.”

“I should hope not,” Cat said, cupping Sansa’s cheek. She kissed her on the other.

Arya hugged her mother so hard her back was left sore. “Be good,” Cat told her, smoothing down her hair. “Try not to make any trouble. The south will be a strange place to you. Listen to the septa, and your father. They just want to keep you safe…” She took Arya’s face in her hands. In most everything else, Arya favored Ned, but she had her mother’s face, the eyes most of all. “Oh, Arya,” Cat sighed out, drawing her into her arms again.

“I’ll be good,” Arya murmured in her ear. “I’ll be safe. No one can hurt me.” She began to say something else as they separated, but the words died on her lips. Cat never knew what they were.

No sooner than Arya had left, another visitor slipped through the door, quiet as a cat. Jon Snow inhaled deeply as Catelyn’s eyes met his. “I came to say goodbye to Bran.”

She did not respond. Jon was the one to break their gaze, as he strode to Bran’s bedside. “I wish I could be here when you wake up,” he started, kneeling down. “I'm going north with Uncle Benjen, to take the black. I know we always talked about seeing the Wall together, but you'll be able to come visit me at Castle Black when you're better. I'll know my way around by then. I'll be a sworn brother of the Night's Watch. We can go out walking beyond the Wall, if you're not afraid.”

While he spoke, Cat’s mind turned back to that night, when she had asked Ned about Jon’s mother. There was talk about the castle, of Lady Ashara Dayne, the haunting beauty whose brother was the Sword of the Morning. Ned’s face had turned to stone when Cat said the name against Jon’s. _He is my blood. That is all that matters. Do not speak to me of her again._ His voice was so hard it’d brought tears to Catelyn’s eyes. Things were not the same after that, not until Arya was born.

“I want you to leave,” Cat told him tightly. Jon looked up at her. She could not read the feeling in his deep dark eyes. _You have haunted me long enough. You and your mother._ He kissed Bran’s brow before rising.

The castle grew quieter once the king took his leave. It was a few days before the sounds of the yard resumed. A wolf’s howl would wash over Winterfell’s walls at least once a day, waking her from sleep more often than not. Cat would watch Bran’s chest rise with the sound, shuddering all the while. It was a ghostly noise, like the wail of a dying man.

It had been one and twenty days since Bran’s fall when Luwin came to her about the accounts. “Lord Robb asks your assistance in reviewing the ledgers,” he told her. “You will want to see how much the royal visit cost us, I think.”

“Poole will help him,” Cat said offhandedly. Bran was breathing gently as the moon rose outside the window.

“Vayon went south with Lord Eddard, my lady. There are a number of other appointments we need to make as well…”

He trailed off as Cat turned on him. “I cannot make appointments, maester. My son may well be dying. You know this.”

Luwin blinked. “Lady Catelyn, the worst has passed.”

“Do you know that for certain?” She moved to the edge of her seat and took Bran’s hand. The skin was cooler than hers.

There was a sigh from beyond the door. “We will take care of the appointments, Luwin.” Robb stepped into the room, rubbing his temple. “It’s late. We’ll discuss it further in the morning.”

The grey maester gave him a nod. “Very well, my lord.”

“I should like to speak to my mother alone.”

“Of course.” Luwin shot her a worried glance before he left.

Cat gripped Bran’s hand tighter as Robb stared at her. “When was the last time you left this room?” he asked.

“I have to stay with him.”

“Maester Luwin says–”

“The most dangerous time has passed, I know, and yet Bran’s eyes are still closed. What if he’s wrong? What if Bran should die? Or wake? I must be here.”

Robb sighed again, and crouched down beside her chair. “Mum…”

“He needs me,” she told him.

“Rickon needs you. He doesn’t understand what’s happening. He follows me around all the time, crying because he thinks everyone is leaving him.” Now it was Cat’s turn to sigh. Did no one understand? “I’m not his father, mum. He needs you.”

Cat opened her mouth to explain again why she couldn’t leave Bran’s side, but she was cut off by a howl. “Oh no.”

“It’s only Bran’s direwolf,” he told her calmly. “You can tell the difference between them, if you listen.” They both watched Bran inhale, the furs rising as the sound reached its peak, then falling as it faded. Cat shivered, but Robb got to his feet. A second howl joined the first as Robb opened the window. “That’s Shaggydog,” he said quietly, listening to the darkness, “and there’s Grey Wind now. Do you hear them?”

Cat was shaking. “Make it stop.” Her head squeezed as the howls filled her ears. She covered them with her hands, but the sound was already there, echoing like it did off Winterfell’s grey walls. “Oh gods.” Tears spilled from her eyes as her breaths quickened. _The Others take those damned wolves!_

Robb was by her again, taking her face in his hands. “Mother, look at me.” She looked up, but her breathing did not slow. “You’re fine. Stay with me. But… something is wrong. The dogs…” She could hear them too, barking down in the kennels.

“Bran,” was all she could say. What if something happened to him?

Robb turned back, gazing toward the open window. There was a flicker of orange in the distance. “Fire,” he breathed out. He got to his feet again. “Stay here. I’ll come back.”

Cat was still shivering as he ran for the door. _At least it is not here_ , she thought as she sat beside Bran on the bed. _At least he is safe._ Color had risen in his wan cheeks. She cupped one with a hand; the skin was warm.

“You’re not s’posed to be here.”

Cat’s head snapped up. There was a man standing in the doorway that she didn’t know. Straw hung from his limp brown hair, and his clothes were covered in stains. She blinked as he moved into the room. “It’s a mercy,” he said, gesturing with the dagger in his right hand. Black and silver rippled as the blade caught the candlelight. “The boy’s dead already.”

Cat’s eyes widened. “No.” He shook his head and laughed. “No!” He was on her in a second.

Catelyn caught the blade when he brought it to her neck. The steel bit deep into her fingers as she tried to push him away. She screamed, but the man slapped a hand over her mouth, silencing her. Tears fell from her eyes once more. She opened her mouth again, but instead of screaming, she bit down.

The man let out a yelp. Cat fell off the bed as he pulled back and let her go. Blood streamed down her hands, filling the creases in her palms. Drops of it stained her nightgown, red against white, like the weirwoods of the old gods. The man cracked his neck, and raised his knife again. Cat braced herself.

The man collapsed as the wolf dragged him backward by the hair. It opened its jaws and his head fell hard to the floor. The blade shimmered as it slipped from his hand. He groped for it, eyes wide with fear as the wolf’s jaws lowered around his neck. They closed with a sickening _crunch._

Cat watched as Bran’s wolf jumped up and lay at the foot of his bed. _The Others take those damned wolves,_ some distant voice in her head said. _Never,_ she thought back. _Never that._ It raised its head and looked down at her, fur wet with blood, yellow eyes glowing in the candlelight.

That was the last thing she remembered before she woke.

Cat’s eyes opened to sunlight streaming through the windows. She sat up slowly as the haze in her head receded. She was in her own bed, washed and wearing a new nightgown. Her hands had been bandaged until they were stiff.

 _What happened to me?_ All those days spent by Bran’s bedside felt like some horrible dream. She felt ashamed when she remembered. _I am not his father,_ Robb’s voice echoed in her head. Had she not told Ned the same thing? She went to Rickon first, once she’d risen and dressed. “Mommy!” he cried when he saw her. “You came back!”

She went down to the godswood after she broke her fast. There were no clouds in the sky, and the wood did not seem so dark. Cat stood before the heart tree, looking down into the pool of water at its feet. The surface was dark, reflecting her as well as the tree above. The leaves of the weirwood were spatters of red against the blue, like her hair.

“Mother.” She looked up and met eyes with Robb. Theon, Ser Rodrik, and Maester Luwin were with him. “You hardly ever come out here,” Robb said.

She nodded. “I know. I want someone’s gods as witness to this.” Robb gave her a curious look, as did the others. “Do we know who that man was?”

“No, my lady,” Rodrik answered. “All we know is that he hid in the stables. We found a purse with ninety silver stags there, hidden under the straw. He’s likely been there since the king’s visit. And that dagger…”

“It was Valyrian steel,” she finished. “I got a good look when he attacked me.” She lifted her hands to show them the bandages. “It cut me nearly to the bone. No other steel could do that.”

“The hilt was dragonbone, too,” Rodrik added. “The man couldn’t possibly afford such a weapon. Someone gave that to him.”

She had suspected as much. The sound of all this made the answer more clear. But Robb seemed unsure. “I’ve posted guards outside of Bran’s room,” he relayed, “but… why? Why would anyone want to kill a little boy? He’s only ten.”

She had asked herself the same once, about Jon Arryn. _It is time._ “What I am about to tell you must not leave the gates of this godswood. I received a letter from my sister, in the Eyrie.”

“I thought Aunt Lysa was in King’s Landing.”

“She was until she ran, fearing for her life, and young Robin’s. She believes the Lannisters killed her husband.”

“You think they tried to kill Bran,” Robb concluded.

“And not only that. I don’t think Bran fell from that tower. I think he was pushed.”

Silence fell across them. The godswood grew loud in the absence of their voices. Birds’ wings beat against the sky as they flew and perched in the trees. A breeze sighed through the leaves of the weirwood. “Well,” Theon started, breaking the stillness, “if anyone can afford Valyrian steel, it is a Lannister. And Ser Jaime stayed behind the day of the hunt, I remember.”

“They come into my home, and try to kill my brother…” Robb narrowed his eyes and gripped the hilt of his sword. “If its war they want…”

“I’ll be behind you, if it comes to that,” Theon told him.

Maester Luwin shook his head. “Too easily words of war become acts of war. We cannot risk treason on conjecture. Lord Eddard has gone south to find the truth of Lady Lysa’s claims. He should know this as well.”

“I don’t trust a raven to carry these words,” Cat said, remembering all Lysa did to hide her own message.

“I’ll ride to King’s Landing and tell him myself,” Robb volunteered.

“No. You are the Lord of Winterfell now, you cannot leave. There must always be a Stark in Winterfell. And Theon belongs here, at your side,” she added when she saw Greyjoy begin to volunteer himself. She did not trust him enough to send him beyond the walls on his own. But who would go, and tell her husband?

“Perhaps we should send a few men of the guard,” Luwin suggested. He turned to Robb. “Our most trustworthy men. Who do you suggest, my lord?”

Cat turned to the heart tree whilst they spoke. It had a long, sad face, as if the red sap staining its bark was truly Stark’s blood. Another breeze rustled the leaves, bright as blood and big as hands. The tree seemed to whisper to her…

A party of Winterfell guards riding through the gates of King’s Landing would be too obvious. If anyone but Ned came bearing the direwolf it would draw the attention of the queen, and that was not what they wanted. She didn’t trust any other men with this information.

The men went quiet as Catelyn turned back to them. “I’ll go.”

Robb’s eyes widened. “Mother? You can’t.”

“I will,” she said. _I do not trust any other men with this, but I trust myself._ “Bran’s life is in the gods’ hands now.”

“The Kingsroad isn’t safe for a woman alone,” Robb said. “I’ll send Hallis Mollen with a squad of guardsmen to escort you.”

“No, I do not want the Lannisters to see me coming. If Ser Rodrik would accompany me, however, I would be glad for the protection.”

“As it please my lady,” Cassel said with a nod.

“Besides, I will not be taking the Kingsroad,” she told them as she started toward the gates. “We will travel the White Knife, and take a ship from White Harbor. If we leave soon, we’ll reach King’s Landing before the king does.”


	7. Cersei IV

Three Lannister men-at-arms brought Prince Joffrey back to the Inn at the Crossroads.

“What is the meaning of this?” said Cersei when she heard yelling in the yard. She inhaled sharply when they brought her son inside. Blood and dirt stained his ripped sleeve. “What happened?” she gasped.

“Get off of me!” Joffrey said, jerking himself out of Sandor Clegane’s grasp. “Look what they did to me, mother. Arya Stark, and that damned wolf of hers.” He winced, and cradled his wounded limb. “My arm…”

Sansa came in behind them, face wet with tears. “I tried to stop her, Your Grace. I did, I did.”

Cersei was frozen. She still remembered that day, when she’d told Robert she wanted the wolves left behind. “Ned wants them with the girls,” he’d said, and that was that. She stared at Joffrey’s bloodied arm. Her hands began to shake.

Jamie had noticed. “Take the prince upstairs and see to his arm,” he ordered in her place. “Sansa, where is your sister?”

“She ran away, I don’t know where.” She began to sob. “Oh, she’s ruined it, she’s ruined everything!”

“Take Sansa to her father,” Jaime told the Hound. She continued to sob as he led her out of the door. Cersei hadn’t moved. Jaime took her by the shoulders. “Sister, you should be with Joffrey.”

Cersei shook her head, coming back to herself. “You must find the girl. Bring her to me, when you do. And the wolf…”

“What do you want me to do?” Jaime asked, gripping his sword.

“Just find them,” she ordered.

Two parties of King’s men left the inn to find Arya Stark, led by her brother and Sandor Clegane. Lord Eddard dispatched a group of his own men as well. Cersei sat with Joffrey as a maid cleaned his wound. The bite marks formed a halo on his forearm, bright and fresh and red. He winced whenever she touched them.

Robert tottered into the room as he was being bandaged. “Where were you?” asked Cersei as he stood in the doorframe. Then she saw the horn of ale in his hand. “Your son is bitten by a wolf and you decide to drink?”

“Quiet,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I have enough to deal with without your nagging.” He turned to Joffrey. “Tell me what happened, son.”

According to Joffrey, Arya had set upon him with clubs. “Her and her little friend, some butcher’s son,” he told them. “I tried to fight them off with Lion’s Tooth–”

“You raised your sword against a girl of one and ten?” Robert interjected.

“She sicced her wolf on me,” Joffrey explained, “and she stole my sword and threw it into the Ruby Ford. My sword, father!”

“I can get you a new sword,” Robert told him.

“Grandfather had that made for me, special.”

“He is lord of Casterly Rock. He can make you another.”

“But my arm…”

“Move your fingers.” Joffrey blinked up at the king. “Go on, do it.” The prince wiggled his fingers up and down. “Your arm will be fine. Now go, rest up. Take him to his room,” he told the maid. She curtseyed and led the prince away.

Robert let out a heavy sigh once the door closed. “That boy, I swear… raising his sword to a girl, what was he thinking?”

“It was not the girl,” Cersei corrected, “it was that wolf. I tried to tell you, Robert. I will not have them in the Red Keep. They’re monsters, and Myrcella is scared of them, besides.”

Robert looked at her. “Do you believe him? Truly?”

Her brow furrowed. “Joffrey didn’t bite himself.”

“Don’t. Don’t take that tone with me.” He rubbed his eyes. “I have seen those wolves, Cersei. They’re as well trained as any of the dogs in my kennels. Sansa’s may be more well so.”

“But a wolf is not a dog,” she argued. “You can teach it to sit and stay and fetch your slippers, but you can’t tame it. You see that now, don’t you?”

He shook his head, and got to his feet. “We need that girl found. I want the truth of all this.”

One search party returned at nightfall with Arya in tow. Cersei was in her rooms, brushing Myrcella’s hair when she heard the horses. “The Queen,” her brother said beyond the window. “Take her to Her Grace.”

Cersei went to the door and called for Jocelyn. “Put the children to bed,” she commanded, “and have Septa Mordane wake Sansa. We may have need of her voice.”

The common room was smoky with candlelight when she came down the stairs. Robert settled into the throne on the makeshift dais at the front of the room and called for wine. “Where is Joffrey?” she asked, ascending the platform. She did not spot him amongst the soldiers crowding the room.

“I will find the truth of this,” Robert told her off-handedly. Masha Heddle handed him a goblet, and he downed half the Dornish red inside with a gulp.

Ser Meryn brought Arya to the fore. The embroidery on her dress was unraveling, and the hem was smudged with dirt. She seemed so small from atop the dais. “Arya,” Robert asked, leaning forward, “why did you run? Your father has been worried sick.”

Her lip trembled. “I’m sorry, Your Grace. I was scared.”

Cersei tilted her head. “And why was that?”

Arya bit her lip. “Nymeria, she…”

“Go on,” Robert urged. “Tell me what happened, child. And tell it true.”

According to Arya, she and her butcher’s boy were playing at swords. “We were pretending to be knights,” she told them. “Joffrey came, and he told Mycah to fight him, but he had a real sword and we only had sticks. We were just playing, but Joffrey cut him, and…”

Cersei heard the door open behind the dais. “Your Grace,” one of the guards started, but Joffrey shoved through. “Unhand me. Don’t you see my arm? Do you mean to make it worse?” He took the wooden stairs two at a time. Arya’s eyes widened when he appeared at Cersei’s side.

Robert exhaled deeply. “I told you to go to sleep, Joff.”

Joffrey ignored him. “You,” he spat, eyes narrowing at the Stark girl. He pointed at her with his bandaged arm. The cloth was spotted with blood. “I could have you hanged for what you did to me.”

“I didn’t tell Nymeria to do that,” said Arya, shaking her head.

“You hit me with a tree branch!”

“You hurt Mycah!”

The doors to the inn burst open. Eddard Stark marched into the common room, his long face angry and red. Arya ran and grabbed him by the waist. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Are you hurt?” he asked, brushing the hair from her face.

“No,” she answered, sniffling.

“It’s alright.” Then he stood, and looked at them. “What is the meaning of this? Why was my daughter not brought to me at once?”

Cersei inhaled sharply. “How dare you speak to your king in that manner?”

“Quiet,” Robert snapped at her. Cersei’s jaw tightened. “I’m sorry, Ned. I never meant to frighten the girl, but we need to get this business done quickly.”

“Your girl and your butcher’s son attacked the prince,” Cersei told him. “That wolf could have torn his arm off.”

“That’s not true!” Arya cried out. “She only bit him a little. And he hurt Mycah!”

“You beat me with clubs and set your wolf on me,” Joffrey growled. “You threw my sword into the river! My grandfather made that for me!”

“ENOUGH.”

The room fell quiet, and Robert let out a heavy sigh. “He tells me one thing, she tells me another. Seven hells, what am I to make of this?” He shook his head. “Where’s Sansa, Ned?”

“In bed, most like,” he answered.

Cersei spotted the old septa at the back of the hall. “She’s not. Sansa, come here darling.”

Sansa approached them wrapped in a cloak of grey velvet. Her hair was still tousled with sleep. Robert leaned forward in his seat. “Tell me what you saw, child. Tell it all and tell it true. It is a great crime to lie to a king.”

Sansa paled. Her eyes found Joffrey on the dais. “I don’t… I don’t know. I don’t remember, Your Grace. It all happened so fast, I didn’t see…”

Arya’s face twisted with anger. “Liar!” She flew at her sister and pulled her hair. “Liar liar liar!”

Sansa let out a scream. “Arya!”

“Stop that!” Ned yelled, pulling the girls apart.

Cersei put a hand to her temple. She looked down at Ned, restraining his daughter by her arms. “She needs to be punished.”

“I’ll decide who is and isn’t punished,” Robert spat at her. He turned to Ned. “See to it that your daughter is disciplined. I’ll do the same with my son.”

“Gladly,” Eddard said with a nod.

Cersei looked at her husband. “But what of the direwolf?”

“Your Grace, we found no trace of it,” said Jaime.

“So be it,” Robert said with a wave of the hand.

“There is another,” Cersei reminded them.

Robert looked at her, and shook his head. “As you will, woman.”

Eddard looked between the two of them. “You can’t mean it.”

“A direwolf is no pet,” Robert said with a sigh. He got to his feet, and took his leave of them, dragging Joffrey along with him.

Sansa blinked. “He… he doesn’t mean Lady, does he?” she asked her father. Then she looked to the queen. “Please, Your Grace, Lady wasn’t there. I left her here, tied up with the hounds. Sandor Clegane will tell you. Prince Joffrey commanded it, and I did it.”

 Cersei descended the dais. “I believe you, sweetling. You are a good girl… but those wolves are dangerous. You saw what happened to my Joffrey, and that one was not even full grown.”

“Lady wasn’t there,” Arya told her. She tried to move forward, but Ned kept a tight grip on her arms. “She didn’t bite anyone. You leave her alone!” Ned chastised her for her tone.

Cersei looked to him. “Where is she?”

He straightened. “Chained up outside, with the hounds. Just as she said.”

“Please, Your Grace. Lady is good. It wasn’t her.”

Cersei took Sansa’s face in her hands. She had the loveliest blue eyes, from her mother. They were wide and pleading. The queen ran a thumb across her cheek. “You will thank me, when this is done. Ser Ilyn?” she called into the crowd. Sansa burst into tears.

Eddard shook his head. “No. Jory, take the girls to their rooms. If it must be done, then I’ll do it myself.”

“You?” Cersei asked, raising an eyebrow. _Is this some trick?_

“The wolf is of the North.” He looked to the king’s justice, all in black, with his hand on his sword. “She deserves better than a butcher.” Ned turned on his heel and strode from the room. Sansa plead and Arya fought as Jory Cassel led them upstairs. _It had to be done_. She would not wait until the other beast went feral and maimed Sansa as well. She called Masha Heddle for wine. She could still hear Sansa crying.


	8. Catelyn IV

Catelyn stared at the scars on her hand.

Her mind went back to that night, to the knife. The handle was black, smooth as polished stone, and chased with fine yellow gold. The blade shimmered under the candles, black and silver and red with her blood. _Valyrian steel, dragonbone hilt, all of it chased in glittering gold._ Of course Littlefinger had owned the blade.

He caught them soon after they had entered the city, sending a few gold cloaks to fetch them to his brothel. “No one will come looking for you here,” he explained, trying to soothe her wrath. “Isn’t that what you want?”

Both he and Lord Varys had taken a look at the blade. The ripples shone in the afternoon sun. “Do you know whose dagger this is?” she asked.

“I must admit,” Varys answered in his soft voice, “I do not.”

Petyr smirked. “Well well, this is a historic day. Something I know that you don’t.” Cat looked up at him. The hilt threw spots of golden light onto his face. “There is only one dagger like this in all of the Seven Kingdoms, my lady. It is mine.”

Cat inhaled sharply. “Yours…?”

“Rather, it was. I lost it at the tournament for Prince Joffrey’s last nameday. I bet on Ser Jaime in the joust, as any sane man would. The Knight of Flowers unseated him.”

“Who?” she asked then. “Who did you lose it to?”

“The Imp,” he told her. “Tyrion Lannister.”

It should not have surprised her – Lysa had warned – but she was still taken aback. Of all the Lannisters, Tyrion had been the most personable. He did not seem to bear them any ill will… but neither had the queen, and she may well have commanded her goodbrother dead. _Lysa had warned._ No doubt he was protecting that brother of his. _What did you see, Bran? What happened in that tower?_

Petyr brought Ned some days later, earning himself a knife to the throat. “The Starks…” Petyr muttered once she’d called her husband off, “quick tempers, slow minds.”

Ned ran his fingers over the scars on her hands, turned red once more by the setting sun. “If the queen learns of this… to accuse her brother would be treason.”

“We have proof,” Cat told him. “We have the knife.”

“Lord Tyrion will say it was stolen from him,” Petyr tempered. “The only man who could say otherwise lost his throat to a direwolf.”

Catelyn had accepted that reluctantly. She would not risk Ned’s head on conjecture. “There is not much more you can do here,” he told her as he sent her off, “but I will find the truth of this. No doubt it is linked to Jon’s death.”

She nodded. “And what happens if you do find the proof?”

“I will take it to Robert… and hope he is still the man I once knew.”

“Petyr will help you. He has promised me so.” Ned bit his lip. “He is like a brother to me,” she insisted, “and he loved Lysa well. He would never betray our trust.”

He nodded, though more to himself. “Once you are back in Winterfell, have Robb send word to the Tallharts and Glovers. They are each to raise one hundred bowmen and fortify Moat Cailin. Lord Manderly is to strengthen the defenses of White Harbor. And keep an eye on Theon. We will have need of his father’s fleet, if it comes to that.”

“If it comes to that…” she repeated. “Will it, do you think?”

Ned looked down. “We will see, when the time comes.”

The door to her room creaked open. “My lady?” Ser Rodrik called quietly. “Masha Heddle has put on dinner.”

Cat flexed her fingers, and got to her feet. She had dressed in plain green wool, only adorned with flowers embroidered around the neck. She redid her hair so that the sides lay loose and curtained her face. She did not want to be noticed, tonight.

The inn’s common room was smoky with candlelight, and hummed with the sound of voices. She joined Ser Rodrik at a table in the corner. His round face was already reddening with wine, free of its distinctive whiskers.

“I have not been here in ages,” she told him. She had been half a girl then, not even married. It had not changed much, physically. The tables were more worn, the floors more scuffed, and Masha’s hair more grey. But there was a darker cast to the place as well. Ned had told her what’d happened there. Maybe it was Lady’s spectre.

“Seven blessings to you!” a man said cheerfully as he passed.

“And to you,” Cat responded politely.

“Boy,” Rodrik barked, flagging down one of the servants, “bread and meat, quickly. And wine for the lady.”

“Good idea, grandfather, I’m starving.” The man plopped down on the bench next to him. He had a harp under his arm. “A song while we wait or…?”

Rodrik grimaced. “I’d rather throw myself down a well.”

The man smirked. “Grandfather, it may be your last chance, if you’re going north. The only music northerners know is the howling of wolves.”

“Wolfsong can be music too,” she said plainly, “if you know how to listen to it.” She knew he was just looking for coin, but song would attract too much attention.

“Just like a northerner,” he said, “or so I’ve heard. I’ve never been, I hear it’s dreadful cold. Terrible for the throat…”

He trailed off as he looked toward the front of the room. Catelyn followed his gaze. Masha Heddle was bent over, speaking to someone. “I’m sorry,” she could just hear her say, “we’re full up, my lord.”

“My men can sleep in the stables. As for myself, I don’t require a large room.”

“Is that…?” the singer asked, squinting. Cat’s eyes widened.

Masha wrung her wrists. “Truly, my lord, we have nothing.”

Cat could just see him, over the heads of men bent down at their plates. Tyrion Lannister reached into a coin purse and pulled out a golden dragon. “Is there nothing we can do to remedy this?”

Masha’s eyes went wide at the sight of gold. A man at a table near them shrugged and got to his feet. “You can have mine.”

“There’s a clever man.” Tyrion tossed the coin into his hands. “I see dinner is on. I should like some of that, whatever it is. Yoren,” he waved to a man behind him in the blacks of the Night’s Watch, “dine with me.”

The singer jumped to his feet. “My Lord of Lannister! Might I entertain you while you eat?” Cat looked down as he moved away. “I can sing of your father’s victory at King’s Landing.”

“Nothing would more likely ruin my supper,” Tyrion said as he sat down. There was a pause, and then she heard, “Lady Stark!” Cat inhaled deeply, and looked up. “What an unexpected pleasure. I was sorry to have missed you at Winterfell.”

Masha slowed with her flagon of wine. “My lady…”

Cat looked around the room. There were many knights amongst the tables, their doublets sewn with the crests of riverland houses. She looked at Tyrion again, and thought of Bran.

“I was still Catelyn Tully, when last we met,” she said to Masha. Then she turned to a man a table over. “Is that the black bat of Harrenhal on your coat, ser?”

The knight gave her a nod. “Yes it is, m’lady.”

“And is Lady Whent a true and honest friend to my father?”

“She is.”

Cat looked at the breast of the man beside him. “The red stallion was always a welcome sight at Riverrun. My father counts Jonos Bracken amongst his oldest and most loyal bannermen.”

“Our lord is honored by his trust,” this knight responded, a bit bemused.

“And you, sers,” Cat continued getting to her feet. A table some ways over was full of men bearing the twin towers of Frey. “How fares Lord Walder?”

One of the knights looked up. “He is well, my lady. He has asked your father for the honor of his presence on his ninetieth nameday. He plans to take another wife.”

“I should like to have half as many friends as Lord Hoster Tully,” Tyrion joked with the man who had given him his room.

Catelyn nodded. “This man,” she said moving to his table, “he came into my house as a guest… and there conspired to murder my son.” A hush fell over the room. “In the name of King Robert and the good lords you serve, I call upon you to seize him and help me return him to Winterfell, to await the king’s justice.”

The room was filled with the sound of steel scraping against wood. Cat gave Tyrion the hardest look she had ever given anyone. All he could do was blink.


	9. Cersei V

 They sat at a table illuminated by the sunlight streaming through Joffrey’s balcony doors. Cersei could see the scars better that way. They had arrived in King’s Landing only a week ago, yet Robert had declared a tournament in honor of his new Hand. Joffrey did not want to be seen with the bandage, thinking it would make him look weak.

“They’re ugly,” he said with a grimace. He shook out his hand, but did not wince.

“They’re nearly healed,” she assured, setting the cloth aside. The bite marks had morphed into a ring of shallow indents in the prince’s pale skin. Only two were truly noticeable, the ones left by the wolf’s fangs. “A king should have scars,” she told him. “It is a sign of strength. You fought off a direwolf.”

Joffrey looked down, his face flushed red. “I didn’t fight off anything,” he admitted. “It bit me and all I did was scream. And the Stark girls saw it, the both of them.”

Cersei ran a hand through Joffrey’s hair. “So they did. But the truth is what you make it, and you said the girl and her mate set upon you with clubs. So they did.” She let out a sigh. That was the gift and the curse of nobility. No one would speak against the prince, but the damage of the lie was already done.

“Must I marry the Stark girl?” Joffrey asked her.

“Yes,” she told him. “She is young and pretty, and the daughter of your father’s Hand besides. You will have beautiful children. You should do something nice for her.”

“I don’t want to,” he said with a pout.

“But you will. She is to be your wife, Joffrey. You may not like her, but you will treat her well.” She would not let them go the way of her and Robert. “Give her a gift, be kind. It will be better that way.”

“And if I don’t?” Joffrey asked.

“Then you will have to contend with her father. Is that what you want?”

He shook his head. “We give those northerners too much power. They think they’re our equals.”

Cersei sat back in her chair. “And how would you solve this… problem?”

Joffrey looked up in thought. “I’d double their taxes, and command them to supply ten-thousand men to the royal army.”

She raised an eyebrow. “The royal army…?”

“Yes,” he said with a nod. “It’s stupid that every lord commands his own men. We’re no better than the hill tribes, that way. We should have a standing army, of men loyal to the crown. No more mobs of peasants who’ve never held pikes in their lives. They’ll be trained by experienced soldiers.”

“And what if the northerners rebel?”

“I’ll crush them,” Joffrey answered confidently. “We’ll seize Winterfell and install someone loyal to the realm as Warden of the North. Uncle Kevan, maybe.”

“I see. But these northmen,” she started, “would they be fighting for you, or their lord?”

“For me,” he answered matter-of-factly. “I’m their King.”

“But you’ve just invaded their homeland and asked them to kill their brothers.”

“I’m _not_ asking.”

Cersei nodded. “The North cannot be held by an outsider, love. It is too big and too wild. When the winter comes, the Seven gods together couldn’t save you and your royal army.” She took his hands in her own. “A good king knows when to save his strength, and when to destroy his enemies.”

“So you agree… the Starks are our enemies?”

Cersei looked down. “Anyone who isn’t us has the potential to become an enemy.”

The queen returned to her apartments and changed into something more presentable before she called on the Hand of the King. She wore a lavender gown embroidered with golden lilies, and a shawl of the same lined with cream-colored velvet. Summer was not yet done, but as Ser Preston Greenfield led her down the serpentine steps, she felt the cool fingers of autumn raking through the breeze.

Jory Cassel stood guard outside of the Hand’s solar. He opened the door, and announced her arrival. “Your Grace,” Lord Eddard said, getting to his feet.

“My lord,” she greeted with a nod. “Please, sit.” He motioned to the chair on the other side of his desk, and she sat as well. “I see you’re already hard at work.”

“Yes. This tourney will require much of my attention.” He folded his hands, and gazed at her expectantly.

“…How is Sansa?”

“She likes it here,” was his only answer.

She glanced down. “That is good. She is a southern flower, that one. She shouldn’t be hidden away in the North–”

“What are you doing here?”

Cersei looked up. “My lord?”

“I doubt you came here just to speak to me of Sansa,” he told her bluntly. “Why are you here?”

Cersei blinked. “… I could ask you the same. What is it you hope to accomplish, Lord Hand?”

“The King has called on me to serve him, and the realm. That is what I’ll do, until he tells me otherwise.”

“Of course,” she said with a nod. _Ever dutiful._ “But you cannot change him, Eddard. You know that, don’t you? Robert will do what he wants, it’s all he’s ever done.”

“I do not plan to change him,” Ned told her. “What I intend is to help him.” _But can you?_ Gods knew someone should try. She had stopped picking up the pieces long ago. It was all the others she had to clean up now.

“You were right, my lord. I did not come to you to speak of Sansa, nor the king. It is that business on the Kingsroad, the… ugliness with the wolves. I was hoping we might put that behind us. Forcing you to kill the creature was extreme.” She looked at the tapestry on the wall, grey wolves bounding across white silk. “Though, sometimes we go to extremes, to protect our children.”

“That we do, Your Grace.” He looked directly into her eyes. “That we do.”


	10. Catelyn V

The sun was high in the sky when they stopped on the mountain road.

Catelyn dismounted and perched herself on a boulder as Ser Rodrik unpacked their rations. Marillion sat next to her, as was his wont. Bronn pulled a hooded Tyrion down from his horse, under the watchful eye of Ser Willis Wode. She didn’t like the look of him, that sellsword – the spark of mischief in his bright blue eyes reminded her uncomfortably of Theon. He was becoming too friendly with her prisoner as well, but she dare not turn him back, not this far.

Cat pulled a blanket over her shoulders as Ser Rodrik handed her a piece of salt pork. Wintry winds were whipping up the high road, rustling through the rough underbrush.

“Remove his hood.”

The Bracken man, Kurleket, did as she bid. Tyrion blinked in the bright sunshine. “Mountains,” he mused, looking around. “Strange. I don’t remember there being mountains on the…” He trailed off when he gazed north, and spied the Giant’s Lance. “Oh… oh my. This is not the Kingsroad.”

Marillion plucked at his wood harp. “ _And on that eve the captive Imp, downwards from his horse did limp. No more would he primp, in garb of red and gold_.” Catelyn allowed herself a smirk.

Tyrion looked up at her. “You said we were going to Winterfell.”

“I did,” she agreed, “often, and loudly.”

He nodded slowly. “My father will have heard, by now, and he’ll be offering a handsome reward. They’ll be looking for me in all of the wrong places…” A sardonic smile spread across his face. “Aren’t you clever?” Cat gave no response. Tyrion shrugged. “Well. Since no one will be able to find us, would you be so good as to untie me?”

“And why would I do that?” Cat asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Do I scare you so, my lady?” Tyrion asked back. Bronn chuckled, and Catelyn narrowed her eyes. “It’s not as if I can run. The hill tribes would kill me for my boots, unless a shadowcat got to me first.”

“Those should be the least of your worries,” she said, and placed a piece of salt pork in her mouth.

Lord Tyrion was only quiet for a minute. “We’re going to the Eyrie, I presume? Tell me, my lady, when was the last time you saw your sister?”

“That’s no business of yours,” she told him curtly.

“She has changed. She was always a bit touched, mind my words, but now… you may as well kill me here.”

She rolled her eyes. He would not scare her. “We didn’t bring you all this way to murder you.”

“Then why?” he asked. “Because I had naught to do with the attempt on your son’s life. I didn’t even know until I had returned to Winterfell.”

Cat fought the urge to roll her eyes again. _A likely story._ “The dagger was found, Lannister.”

Tyrion gaped at her. “What… what kind of _imbecile_ would arm an assassin with his own blade?”

Ser Rodrik stood, his face reddening. “Should I gag him, my lady?”

“Why?” Tyrion asked, as Bronn held him back by the shoulder. “Am I starting to make sense?”

Catelyn got to her feet as well. There was a heat rising on her neck. She opened her mouth to speak…

And an arrow burst through Kurleket’s head.

What came out of her mouth instead was a scream. Men emerged from the bush surrounding them, the shaggy barbarians of the hill tribes. Her remaining men formed a circle around her, pulling out their swords. Another arrow sailed through the air, missing a Frey knight by a hair and landing in the flank of a horse. Its screams were joined by the yells of men.

Ser Rodrik pulled her away by the arm. “My lady, this way.” He shoved a knife into her hands before running back into the thick of the fight.

She could not keep track of what was happening. Stone and bronze and steel clashed, flashing in the high noon sun. Ser Willis spun, Ser Rodrik grunted, and Bronn slashed and slashed again. She saw the Frey knight go down, and then the other, but Bronn caught a mountain man before he could get to Marillion. Cat’s eyes could not keep still.

“My lady!”

Cat jumped halfway out of her skin. Tyrion was at her feet, arms held out toward her. “Untie me.” Her eyes widened. He shook his wrists. “What good am I to you, if I’m dead?” She inhaled, and sliced the ropes bounding his wrists. _Do not make me regret this._ He snatched a shield off a horse, and smashed it into the knees of a mountain man trying to hack away at Bronn.

Cat turned away, and tried to get her breathing in check. _We knew this might happen,_ she told herself. _It is always a danger._ And yet, the timing… Tyrion’s words rung in her head. _I must know the truth._

A rough hand gripped Catelyn about the throat. She gasped, the last air leaving her lungs. Ser Willis saw her, but another mountain man came at him with a stone hammer. Cat scratched at the hand with her own, nails digging into the flesh, but he wouldn’t let go. Then she remembered the knife.

He let out a howl when she sunk the blade into his wrist. She fell forward and he stumbled back, blood running down his arm. He looked at his wound, then at her on the ground, knife still in hand. He growled.

A shield swung round and slammed into his knee. He yelled as his leg collapsed from under him. Tyrion brought the shield up again, and smashed it into his head. Blood crept across the rocky soil. Tyrion met her eyes, and waddled away.

Her men managed to chase off the rest of the clansmen as she pulled herself off the ground. Ser Rodrik had a nasty cut on his arm, and Ser Willis’s morningstar was wet and red. Bronn was wiping his sword off on a fallen cloak. “Your first?” he said to Tyrion, who still clutched his bloodied shield. Tyrion nodded. “You need a woman. Nothing like a woman after a fight.”

Tyrion’s eyes met hers again. “I’m willing, if she is.”

Catelyn grimaced. “We must move,” she told her men. “Linger too long and they will try again.”

“Would it not be safer,” Marillion started between breaths, “to turn back, and go north?”

“There is no turning back,” she told him. A strong wind blew past, rustling her blood-stained skirts. Cat found her blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders once more. “We’ve come too far.”


	11. Cersei VI

Cersei came to the king’s chambers the day after the fight.

She’d let Jocelyn drape her in a morning jacket, because Robert’s apartments were always cooler than hers. A chain of gold links hung heavy around her neck. Robert had given it to her when they were married. She always wore it when she needed to speak to him, as if it would make things go well. _As if he would remember_.

The king sat facing a window with a goblet of wine. He didn’t stand when she was announced. He never did. “I’m sorry your marriage to Ned Stark didn’t work out,” she called. He let out a sigh. “You two seemed so good together.”

“I’m glad I could do something to make you happy,” he responded.

Cersei raised an eyebrow as he drank from his cup. “Without a Hand, it will all fall apart.”

He finally looked back at her. “I suppose this is where you tell me to name Jaime to the position?”

“Jaime?” she echoed. “He is not serious enough. If there was one thing Ned Stark was, it was serious.” He had no response. She moved closer to his chair. “Was it really worth it, losing him this way?”

Robert glanced back. He seemed surprised she was still there. “Is that any business of yours?”

“This kingdom, you mean? Yes, I think so.” He sighed again, but pulled another chair up next to him. “I know you hate those Targaryens,” she started as she sat, “but is this really–?”

“If the girl convinces her horse-lord to cross the Narrow Sea… we won’t be able to stop the horde.”

“But they won’t cross,” she insisted, “the Dothraki do not sail. They don’t have discipline, or armor, or siege weapons.”

Robert chuckled. “It’s a neat little trick you do. You move your lips, and your father’s voice comes out.”

“Is my father wrong?”

Robert sat forward, and put down his cup. “Let’s say Viserys Targaryen does land, with forty thousand Dothraki screamers at his back. We hole up in our castles – a wise move. Only a fool would meet the Dothraki in an open field. But they will leave us in our castles. They’ll go from town to town, looting and burning, killing every man who can’t hide behind a stone wall. They’ll steal our crops and livestock, enslave our women and children. How long will the people of the Seven Kingdoms stand behind their absentee king – their cowardly king, hiding behind high walls? When do the people decide that Viserys is the rightful monarch after all?”

He trailed off and gazed out of his window. Cersei blinked. “Tell me, which is the bigger number?” he commanded. “Seven, or one?”

She raised her brows again. “Seven,” she answered matter-of-factly.

“So it seems. One army, a real army, united behind one leader with one purpose.” She glanced at him. _Is this where Joffrey got that nonsense?_ “Our purpose died with the Mad King. Now we’ve got as many armies as there are men with gold in their purses. And everybody wants something different. Your father wants to rule the world… and Ned Stark wants to run away and bury his head in the snow.”

Cersei glanced down. “Father wants peace,” she corrected, “and, as it seemed to me, so did Lord Eddard. But I am not so sure what you want, Your Grace.”

He looked at her. “We haven’t had a real fight since the Greyjoy Rebellion nine years ago. Backstabbing doesn’t prepare you for a fight, but that’s all the kingdom is now – backstabbing and arse-licking and money-grubbing. I don’t even know what holds it together.”

Cersei looked right into his eyes and said, “Our marriage.”

A laugh burst from Robert’s lips. She allowed herself a small chuckle. “So, here we sit,” he said, motioning to the two of them, “seventeen years later, holding it all together. Don’t you get tired?” She nodded. _You have no idea._ “How long can hate hold a thing together, do you think?”

She brushed her hair behind her ear. “Seventeen years is a long time.”

“Yes it is,” he agreed.

“Yes…” She gazed out of the window. Robert’s apartments overlooked the wall facing Blackwater Bay. Sunlight sparkled on the waters. “What was she like?”

Robert looked at her. “You’ve never asked about her before.”

“No…”

“Why not?”

Cersei sat up, but did not meet his gaze. “At first, just saying her name, even in private…. It felt like I was breathing life back into her. I thought, if I didn’t talk about her, she’d just fade away for you.” He shook his head, and picked up his cup. “But that didn’t happen,” she agreed. “After that I did it out of spite. I didn’t want to give you the satisfaction of thinking that I cared. But that didn’t mean anything to you either… I think you may have enjoyed it.”

He swished the dregs of his wine around in his goblet. “So. Why now?”

She finally looked at him. “What harm could Lyanna Stark’s ghost do to us, that we haven’t done to each other a hundred times over?”

He nodded slowly. “You want to know the horrible truth?” he asked. “I can’t even remember what she looked like. I only know she was the one thing I ever wanted…” He leaned forward again, and rested his arms on his knees. “Someone took her from me, and the Seven Kingdoms couldn’t fill the hole she left behind.”

Cersei pulled her jacket closed, feeling the golden cranes embroidered on the blue silk. “I felt something for you once. Did you know that?”

He was silent a moment, then answered, “I did.”

“Even after we lost our first boy…” _A bird without his wings._ “Was it ever possible for us? Was there ever a time, even a moment…?”

Robert stared out of the window for a while. Boats cut through the dark waters in the distance. She could hear the surf washing against the cliff below them. “No,” he finally said. “Does that make you feel better, or worse?”

Cersei took his goblet, and downed the last of his wine. “It makes me feel nothing.” She got to her feet, and threw the goblet to the ground.


	12. Catelyn VI

They managed to make it to the Bloody Gate all in one piece.

By the time they’d reached the castle they were road weary, and bloody as the battle that had given it its name. The sun was sinking in the sky, painting the valley orange-gold. A knight in silver plate enameled with blue moons met them at the gates. “Lady Stark. You’re a long way from home.”

“And to whom do I speak?” Catelyn asked.

“I have the honor to be Ser Vardis Egan, Knight of the Vale.” He glanced up at the Eyrie, a column of white marble perched on the shoulders of the mountain. “It’s late. Is Lady Arryn expecting you?”

“I didn’t have time to send word, I fear.”

Ser Vardis glanced over her shoulder. “Why is he with you?”

She looked back at Tyrion, still untied and carrying his shield. It had belonged to one of the Frey knights, and bore their twin towers. “He is my prisoner.”

“He doesn’t look like a prisoner,” Ser Vardis said warily.

“My sister will decide what he looks like,” Cat told him sternly.

Vardis nodded. “That she will, my lady. This way, if you please.” He led them up the mountain himself, under the purpling evening sky.

Lysa received them in the Eyrie’s high hall, which was built in the same marble as the castle walls. Veins of blue shot through the pale white bricks, visible only in the candlelight. Lysa looked down on them from the high seat, carved in unblemished weirwood. She was wrapped in grey fur, with her son on her lap

“You bring him here without my permission?” she crowed. “You pollute my home with his presence?” She looked down at her son, who was sucking noisily at her breast. “Your aunt has done a bad thing, Robin, a very bad thing. You remember her, don’t you?”

Her nipple fell from his mouth with a wet pop. He gave his mother a nod. “Isn’t he beautiful?” Lysa cooed. “And strong too. Jon knew it. His last words were, ‘the seed is strong’. He wanted everyone to know what a good, strong boy his son would grow up to be. Look at him, the lord of all the Vale.”

The Lord of all the Vale was at least eight, by Catelyn’s judgment, too old to be breast feeding by a good many years. She’d weaned Rickon when he was only three. Catelyn could feel the eyes on her as Lysa smiled and stroked Robin's hair. She wouldn’t meet them. “Lysa,” she called gently, “you wrote to me about the Lannisters, warning me–”

“To stay away,” she shrieked, “not to bring one here!”

“Mommy,” Robin started, pointing to Tyrion, “is that the bad man?” He had Jon’s coloring, but Lysa’s face. Cat noticed how thin they both were.

“It is,” Lysa answered with a nod, all the softness back in her voice.

“He’s little.”

“He is Tyrion,” she informed him, “the Imp of House Lannister.” She said his name like a curse. “He killed your father. He murdered the Hand of the King!”

Tyrion raised his brows. “Oh, did I kill him too?” Bronn sniggered behind his hand. “I have been a very busy man.”

“Watch your tongue,” Lysa chided. She motioned to the guards standing along the veined marble walls. “These men are knights of the Vale. Every one of them loved Jon Arryn. Every one of them would die for me.”

“If any harm comes to me,” Tyrion countered, “my brother Jaime will see that they do.”

Robin jumped to his feet. “You can’t hurt us!” he shouted. “No one can hurt us here! Tell him, mommy, tell him!”

Lysa pulled him back into her lap. “Hush now, my sweet boy. He’s just trying to frighten us. Lannisters are all liars. No one will hurt my baby.”

Robin turned back to Tyrion with a glimmer in his eye. “Mommy, I want to see the bad man _fly_.”

Lysa ran her fingers through his mop of brown hair. “Perhaps you will, my little love.”

Catelyn blinked, and found her voice. “He is _my_ prisoner,” she reminded. “I will not have him harmed.”

Lysa narrowed her eyes. “Very well, _sister_.” Robin stuck out his lip. “Ser Vardis!” Lysa called, motioning to Tyrion. “My sister’s… _guest_ is weary. Take him down below, so he can rest. Introduce him to Mord.” Ser Vardis gave her a nod, and led Tyrion away. “As for the rest of you, we are having chambers prepared. Gretchel will show you the way. Catelyn, I would like to speak to you.”

Cat had to regain her senses before she followed Lysa and Robin out of the throne room. “Mommy, I want to make him fly _now,_ ” Robin whined.

“It is late, my little lord,” Lysa told him, leading him by the hand. A grey maester stood beside the door. “Coleman, take Lord Robin back to bed. He needs his rest.” He nodded, and showed the boy down the dim hallway.

Lysa let out a dreamy sigh as she watched them go. Once they’d rounded the corner, she turned back to Cat with a face hard as stone. “You are making me regret my warning, sister.”

“Lysa, I–”

“You’re endangering my son, bringing that man here. Do you know that? Do you know what his father is like to do, when he finds out?”

“Yes, I am well aware.” Tyrion had been sure to remind her. _Often, and loudly._ “That is why I came here. We would be wide open on the Kingsroad. The high road is not so easily trod, and the Eyrie is impregnable. Even Tywin Lannister knows that.”

“You are very lucky it is, else we might not be so kind. To bring this ugliness into my home…” She shook her head. “I thought you loved me, Cat.”

“This _ugliness_ concerns you as well,” Cat reminded her. “You said so yourself. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten that quickly? It all comes back to Jon’s death.”

Lysa put up a hand. “Don’t. Do not speak to me of Jon.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “The moon has turned, and turned again, but the wounds are still fresh. I know what happened to him, you need not remind me.” She looked up at Cat again, her blue eyes teary. “And now you have brought one of those treasonous cravens into my home! Don’t you see the danger this puts us in? My son…”

“Yes… you love him very much. I’ve seen that. But I love my son as well, and I am not going to let the man who tried to kill him run free.”

“Then let us throw him out of the Moon Door and be done,” Lysa urged. “Lord Tywin will pick his bones from the mountains, and know what it means to cross an Arryn. He will never hurt anyone again.”

“We can’t!” Cat told her. “The queen will call us traitors if we kill Tyrion before he confesses to his crimes. Ned has the knife, but that is not enough. He has to say the words, or this will all be for naught.”

“Oh, you are right,” Lysa spat in exasperation. “You're right, you're right. You’re always right.”

“Now is not the time for this,” Cat reprimanded. Then she softened her voice. “Ned only accepted the appointment as Hand when I told him what was in your letter. He is going to find out why they wanted Jon dead. We will get justice, but we need that confession first.”

Lysa looked down at the ground again. “Well, Lord Tyrion shan’t keep us waiting long. The sky cells are known to make men sing.” She shivered, and looked up at a flickering candle on the wall. “Come along, Cat. It is dreadful cold in here, at night.”


	13. Cersei VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WARNING FOR PHYSICAL ABUSE**

“Your Grace?”

Jocelyn’s hand shook Cersei awake. “What is it?” she asked blearily. She had dozed off in her window seat while reading about King Maegor the Cruel. An empty wine goblet sat on a nearby table. The sun painted her bedroom walls red.

“It’s cousin Jaime. He’s…” Jocelyn trailed off, her face etched with worry.

Cersei straightened. “What about Jaime? Has something happened?”

“You have to go to him, before the king does,” she said, her voice a tremulous whisper. “I fear he’s done something terrible.”

After she dressed, her cousin led her not to White Sword Tower, where the Kingsguard kept their apartments, but to the throne room. She entered through the king’s door, at the back. “Jaime?” she hissed as she rounded the dais. Her brother sat at the foot of the Iron Throne, staring pensively at the double doors that led to the gallery. Sun and shadows striped the room in red and black. “What have you done?”

“The classic question,” he said with a sardonic chuckle. She put her hands on her hips. “Do you know what _he_ did? What he commanded his wife to do?” He looked up at her, blue eyes burning. “She took our brother prisoner. She snatched him at sword point, and ran off to hide behind her sister’s skirts in the Eyrie.” He squeezed his hand into a fist, like he was itching to crush a throat. “If Ned Stark thinks, for even a moment–”

“It will be more than you have in your entire life,” she snapped. “What did you do to him? Is he–?”

“Dead?” Jaime finished. “No. A guard speared him through the leg, that’s all. I would have finished him, but…” He shook his head. “They won’t throw Tyrion out of the Moon Door because of me.”

She gaped at him. “Do you hear yourself when you speak? Have you forgotten who he is? He’s the Hand of the King, Jaime! He has the power to command even you, under the right circumstances.”

“He _was_ the Hand,” Jaime corrected as he got to his feet, “and that makes no difference.”

“You know what? You are right,” she agreed. “What matters most is that he is the king’s dearest friend, and you attacked him! You may not have speared his leg, but Robert will treat you as if you had.” Jaime’s eyes widened. She continued on before he could speak. “Oh, I hope you didn’t think Robert would just let this pass. You will be lucky if he only sends you to the Wall.”

Jaime had no response, but she could see the anger bubbling inside him, shining in his eyes. She lowered her voice. “You said Lady Stark took him to the Eyrie?” she asked. He nodded. “What was she doing in the south? We left her behind in Winterfell.”

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

“And why did she take him?”

“Some fool sent a catspaw to slit Bran’s throat,” he told her offhandedly. “I had the tale from Lord Baelish.”

Her eyes widened. “What…?” She turned, her hand over her mouth in shock. “To murder a crippled boy in his sick bed… How could someone be so cruel? And she thinks Tyrion sent him?” She shook her head. “That makes no sense.”

“They hate us,” Jaime spat, “all of us, for nothing more than our names. I told you how it was with Ned and I. She is the same.”

Cersei shook her head again. “That’s not it. I may not know Catelyn Stark well, but I know her enough, and I know mothers. She wouldn’t do this without cause.” She looked down. “I just don’t know what it is. None of us bore the boy any ill will.”

“That doesn’t matter, I’m telling you. We’re Lannisters – that was proof enough for her. They judge us by our names, and nothing else.”

Cersei stamped her foot on the marble floor. “Enough! This has naught to do with your petty feud with Ned Stark.” She stepped back and let out a sigh. “Besides, Catelyn’s reasoning matters not. If the Starks believe we have committed this crime, then we are as good as guilty.”

Anger flashed in Jaime’s eyes. “No!”

“Yes!” Cersei took her brother by the shoulders. “I warned you about this. Robert will take Ned’s word without a second thought, especially after what you’ve done.”

He shook his head stubbornly. “No. He cannot get away with this. It’s treason, Cersei. Treason! Tyrion’s done nothing!”

“I know! But they believe he has, so Robert will too, and there’s no amount of stabbing that will change it.” She let him go and looked down, thinking. “This must be handled gently. We’ve no choice but to make peace with the Starks.”

“Peace…? Cersei, no. There is no _peace_. What she did was an act of war, and Father has answered.” Cersei looked up, and raised an eyebrow. “He’s sent men to bloody the Riverlands in retribution. Catelyn Stark will rue the day she ever laid hands on a Lannister.”

Cersei closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. “The Others take you both,” she cursed. She sat down on the steps leading up to the Iron Throne. Her head was suddenly pounding. “You need to leave.”

Jaime did a double take. “What? No.”

“Yes, you do. You’re going to go to Father and tell him not to call the banners.”

“I’ve already told you–”

“I won’t have a war over this!” she shouted, getting to her feet. “I absolutely will not! He isn’t worth it–”

“He is my blood!”

Jaime’s hand flashed across her face. Cersei stumbled back, clutching her cheek. The skin was beginning to redden beneath her fingers. “You… you…” She couldn’t find the words. He had stolen them.

“He is my blood,” Jaime said again. He turned away from her, shaking his head. “Never, never…”

Cersei’s voice was almost a whisper. “You need to go.”

He looked back. His mask of anger began to crack at the sight of her. “Cersei…”

“You will leave King’s Landing and go to Casterly Rock, and tell Lord Tywin not to call his banners.” Tears were stinging at her eyes. Jaime was the only man who had ever seen her cry. This time, she didn’t let him.

“I– I won’t! You can’t do this. Only the king commands the Kingsguard.”

“I am the _queen_ ,” she hissed, reminding him. “Now get out.”

“Cersei–”

“GO.”

She turned on her heel and marched out of the king’s door. Jocelyn was waiting for her at the top of the stairs. “Your Grace…” She trailed off at the sight of Cersei’s face.

“Take me to my rooms,” the queen commanded.

Their walk back to the royal apartments was long and silent. They took a roundabout path, to avoid prying eyes. When they returned, Cersei shooed out her other maids. “Wine,” she ordered of Jocelyn.

She stood by the bed, staring out the windows. Her rooms overlooked the greater part of the castle, and the city beyond. The sun had turned the walls the color of fire. In the yard she could see a shape moving to the slender White Sword tower, a spot of white in the red.

Suddenly her cheeks were wet. Cersei brought her hands to her mouth as a sob escaped her. She had been hit before, by Robert when he was drunk or wroth or had grown tired of her mouth, but Jaime… he had never raised a hand to her. Never.

She heard Jocelyn set down a glass. “My queen…”

Cersei shook her head and waved off any questions. “I will be fine.” She dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve. “Pray that you marry a man who thinks with his head rather than his sword, Jocelyn. Either one.” She shook her head. Jocelyn handed her the goblet. “Tell me, how did you learn of what Jaime did?”

“It was Lancel,” she told her. “He came running and told me to wake you.”

Cersei tilted her head lightly. _Oh?_ “Bring him here, please.”

Cersei cleaned her face once Jocelyn left. The mark was starting to fade, but the skin around her eyes was red from crying. She combed her fingers through her hair. _Maybe it would be better if he saw me like this._ It would never work on Jaime… but Lancel wasn’t Jaime.

Jocelyn soon returned with her other cousin. “Your Grace,” Lancel said with a bow. He was her uncle Kevan’s son and a squire to the king, though he hated the honor – he was the only Lannister Robert could bully, besides her. His looks reminded her of Jaime, in his youth, but his blue eyes were Kevan’s, not Joanna’s, and his hair was a lighter shade of blond.

Cersei rose and moved to her window seat. “Come, sit with me.”

“Your Grace,” he gasped as he saw her face in the light. “Did something… Has…?”

“You are sweet worry about me, cousin, but I won’t trouble you with this,” she told him, brushing her fingers across the mark. “I am only clumsy.” She could read the concern on his face as he nodded. “I wanted to thank you for bringing me these tidings. Normally King Robert doesn’t trouble me with such things.”

“Yes,” he agreed, “but I thought it best if… I came when Lord Baelish told the tale. This… this is a family matter. The king would not understand, not truly.” He looked down, and shook his head. “Pray, forgive me, I shouldn’t speak of him that way.”

“However harsh, your words are true. There are some matters only a Lannister will understand.” She took his hand. “Know that you can always speak freely with me.” He gave her another nod, and let out a sigh. It was one of relief. “Lancel, darling… what does our family mean to you?”

He looked up into her eyes. His were a pale shade of blue, like a clear winter sky. “Everything,” he answered unflinchingly.

She nodded, and looked out over the castle. “That is good to hear.”


	14. Catelyn VII

They’d only had three days’ wait before Tyrion decided to confess.

He stood before a medallion of thick weirwood set into the floor, painted the same blue as the night sky. He was already worse for wear after their climb up the high road, but there were dark circles under his eyes, and dirt creased his face. Lysa had not been wrong about the sky cells, it seemed.

The Eyrie’s knights and attendants crowded the hall below the high seat. The tall windows threw shafts of bright sunlight across the white marble. Lysa and Robin matched each other in garb of sky blue velvet. Catelyn stood beside them on the tall dais in plain dark green.

Lord Robin tapped impatiently against the seat with his signet ring. Lysa seemed not to notice. “You wish to confess your crimes?” she asked Tyrion.

He nodded. “Yes, my lady, I do.”

Lysa glanced at Cat and smirked. “Then speak, Imp. Meet your gods as an honest man.”

Tyrion looked down. “Well… where do I begin? I am a vile man, my lady, I confess it. My crimes and sins are beyond counting. I’ve lied and cheated and gambled and whored. I’m not particularly good at violence… but I am good at convincing others to do it for me. But you’ll want specifics, I suppose.”

He narrowed his eyes ever so slightly at Catelyn before he turned to address the hall. “When I was seven I saw a serving girl bathing in the river. I stole her robe, and she was forced to return to the castle naked. When I close my eyes… I can still see her tits bouncing.” A few people around the walls snickered. Cat saw Bronn smirk, as always.

Tyrion continued with his childish escapades. “When I was ten, I stuffed my uncle’s boots with goat shit. I blamed it on a squire and he was flogged, while I escaped justice. When I was twelve, I… milked my eel, if you will, into a pot of turtle stew.” The ladies in the room gasped. Catelyn straightened herself. “I do believe my sister ate it – or, at least, I hope she did. Once I brought a jackass and a honeycomb into a brothel–”

Catelyn shook her head and grimaced. “Enough. Enough!”

Robin looked up at her. “But I want to know what happened next!”

Lysa rubbed her temple. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Confessing my crimes,” Tyrion answered innocently.

“Lord Tyrion, you are accused of hiring a man to slay my son Bran in his bed, and of conspiring to murder my sister’s husband, the Hand of the King,” Cat reminded him.

He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Oh. I’m sorry, I don’t know anything about all that.”

Lysa narrowed her eyes. “Well. I hope you enjoyed your little game. Mord! Take him back to the dungeons. Give him a smaller cell, with a steeper floor.”

Tyrion sidestepped Lysa’s toothless goaler as he came forward. “Now wait just a minute! Is this how justice is done in the Vale? You accuse me of crimes, and when I deny them you throw me in a cell to freeze and starve? Where is the king’s justice? I am accused and demand a trial.”

Lysa’s mouth tightened. “If you’re tried and found guilty, then by the king’s own laws you will pay with your life.”

“I understand the law,” Tyrion said with a nod.

“You know, we have no executioner in the Eyrie,” she informed him. “Life is more elegant here.” She looked down at two of her guards, who stood beside a large knob shaped like a crescent moon. “Open the Moon Door.”

The plate of wood at the center of the room slid back into the floor, opening out to the mountains. Frosted air cut up into the room. Lysa got to her feet slowly. “You want a trial, my Lord of Lannister? Very well. My son will listen to whatever you have to say, and you will hear his judgment. Then you will leave, by one door… or another.”

Tyrion glanced down at the stony ridges sparkling below the castle. “I won’t trouble Lord Arryn with such. I demand a trial by combat.”

The sisters looked at each other. Cat bit her lip, and gave a shallow nod. Lysa sighed. “You have that right,” she allowed as she sat down.

All at once, five of Lysa’s household knights came forward, begging to be her champion. “Let me avenge your husband,” one said, and another called, “I will defend your honor, my lady.” Another fell to his knee and professed his deep allegiance to both the old Lord Arryn and the new. Even Ser Willis asked to have the honor, for the love he bore their father.

Robin clapped giddily, bouncing in the high seat beside his mother. “Make the bad man _fly_!”

Lysa held up a hand for quiet. She looked to Vardis Egan, who stood silent near the center of the crowd. “Ser, you’ve been quiet. Don’t you want to avenge my husband?”

Ser Vardis stepped forward and took a knee. “With all my heart, my lady, but the Imp is half my size. It would be shameful to slaughter such a man and call it justice.”

“I quite agree,” Tyrion said with a nod.

“You demanded a trial by combat,” Lysa reminded.

“And now I demand a champion. I have that right, same as you.”

Ser Vardis got to his feet. “I will gladly fight the Imp’s champion, for you.” Lysa smiled in satisfaction.

“I wouldn’t be too glad, Ser. I name my brother Jaime Lannister as my champion.”

A few people gasped. “The Kingslayer is hundreds of miles from here…” said Catelyn.

“Send a raven,” Tyrion told them. “I’m happy to wait.”

“No!” Lysa snapped. “The trial is today, Lord Imp. Your champion is here, or you do not have one.”

Tyrion let out a sigh. “If you insist.” He turned to the crowd once more. “Do I have a volunteer?” His plea was met by silence. “… Anyone?” A few maids giggled from a corner. Lord Robin joined his laugh with theirs. “Take pity on a poor Imp…”

Lysa rolled her eyes. “I think we can assume that no one is willing to–”

She was interrupted by someone clearing their throat. Bronn pushed himself off the wall and cut through the crowd. “I’ll do it.” When he reached the center of the room he looked Ser Vardis up and down. “Yeah. I’ll stand for the dwarf.” Tyrion looked up at him and nodded. He was trying not to look pleased.

Lysa’s knights shooed everyone else back against the walls. An attendant was sent to fetch a shield and helm for Bronn. Ser Vardis took his shield from where it rested against a pillar. It was a heavy thing, probably made of oak, and painted with the moon and falcon device. His sword was castle forged steel, gleaming in the morning sun. The servant returned with an old helm nicked with rust, and the small pine shield Tyrion had carried up the mountain. Bronn’s blade was plain, but Cat had seen what he could do with it…

“Bronn wears no steel,” she noted, looking at Ser Vardis’s shining plate armor.

Lysa shrugged. “He has requested none. If he wants to die, he shall.” She sat back in the high seat. “Ser Vardis will gladly oblige.”

Cat looked down at Tyrion, who stood at the edge of the crowd against the wall. When she was at the Inn, it had seemed so simple, but now… _It is in the gods’ hands._ They would see the truth of this, no matter what it was.

Lord Robin got to his feet. Ser Vardis bowed his head, and Bronn gave him a nod. Robin lifted a hand above his head and called out, “Fight!”

Ser Vardis swung first.

The air in the high hall shivered with the sound of steel meeting steel. The swords slid off each other, and Vardis swung again. Bronn dodged, and dodged, and dodged as Ser Vardis chased him toward the one clear wall. The knight raised his sword to strike at the sellsword’s head, but Bronn ducked and leapt out of the way.

Lysa bristled. “Stand and fight, coward!”

Bronn responded by knocking a stand full of lit candles toward Ser Vardis. The knight swatted them away with a hand and the candles rolled across the floor, still aflame. Vardis swung anew, this time herding Bronn toward the Moon Door. Before they could reach the edge, he finally let their swords meet.

The two men struggled, pushing each other. Ser Vardis’s polished blade came close to Bronn’s chin, flashing light on his face, but the sellsword managed to shove him away. Vardis staggered back, his armor clinking. Cat could see sweat glistening beneath his helm. She inhaled deeply.

This time Bronn struck first. He was quick as a cat, his sword flashing as he swung and swung. Vardis blocked him with sword and shield, but he was slow, and could not catch them all. Most struck harmlessly off his armor, but one slash caught him at a joint, and cut him beneath the plate.

Lysa gasped as blood began to trickle down his leg. Tyrion was quiet, but he nodded approvingly. Ser Vardis lifted his visor and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Finish him,” Lysa hissed. Vardis looked up at her, and nodded.

Her words gave him a second breath. He flew at Bronn, trying to corner him at the wall again, but this time Bronn didn’t run. He met the knight again, and again and again, the sounds ringing off the marble walls. They reached the Moon Door once more. Vardis went in for a vicious slash, but Bronn tripped him, and he toppled to the ground. He brought up his shield when Bronn tried to stab him. Vardis struggled to his knees, panting. Lysa leaned forward in her seat.

Bronn took a step back, and kicked the knight’s shield away. It skidded across the floor and disappeared through of the Moon Door. Vardis grunted and lifted his sword. There was a flash of steel, and the plain blade was sticking out of his neck. “No!” Lysa cried, as others covered their mouths in shock. Catelyn closed her eyes. She heard that beautiful, heavy plate scrape across the floor as he fell through the Moon Door.

When Cat opened her eyes again, the room was quiet. Bronn removed his helm and tossed it to the ground. It bounced across the marble with a hollow clank. Tyrion was smiling. Robin hopped up and down excitedly. “Is it over, mommy?”

Lysa was still staring at the Moon Door, shaking her head in disbelief. “I don’t… He couldn’t…” Then she looked up at Bronn, her face a fury. “You didn’t fight with honor!”

“No,” he said with a shake of the head. He motioned at the Moon Door. “But he did.”

Robin grabbed his mother’s arm. “Can I make the little man fly now?”

Tyrion shook his head as Mord unlocked his shackles. “Not this little man. This little man is going home. Ser Rodrik?” he called, turning to the old knight, who sat against the wall. “I believe you have something of mine.”

Rodrik grunted and threw Tyrion his coin purse. Tyrion gave Lysa a bow, and started for the door. Bronn followed behind him, shoving the shield back into his arms. Tyrion tossed the coin purse to Mord as he left the hall. “A Lannister always pays his debts,” his voice echoed back.

Catelyn let out a sigh as the doors closed. Lysa looked up at her with tears in her eyes. “You should have left well alone,” she scolded shakily.

“I was trying…” Cat started to argue, but she glanced at the hall, still full of Lysa’s people. _Not here._

“It doesn’t matter what you were trying to do,” Lysa spat at her sister. She got to her feet once more. “Another man is dead now. Is that what you wanted? Are you happy?” She took Robin’s hand and shook her head. “You should have left well alone,” she muttered.

Cat watched her go, heart pounding in her chest.


	15. Cersei VIII

_Lord Stark requests the presence of Her Grace in the godswood at midnight._

“Who gave you this?” Cersei asked as her eyes ran over the note again.

“One of his men,” Dorcas told her, “I do not know which. He said no one’s eyes were to see it but yours. Shall I carry your reply, my queen?”

“No… no. Return to your duties. I need to rest.”

Cersei watched the shadows lengthen across the castle yard from her window seat. Robert had inflicted Ned on them once more before running off on a hunting trip. She’d been expecting that. _Do what you want,_ she had thought then, _you won’t hurt us anymore._ And maybe Robert wouldn’t, but their Lord Hand had grown… restless.

Word of Gregor Clegane terrorizing the Riverlands reached him in the form of a group of farmers from the region, come to court to ask for justice. Lord Stark responded by calling her father to answer for the crimes of his men, on pain of being branded a traitor. Her hopes of making good were dashed just like that. She might have screamed when she’d heard.

And now there was this. She didn’t know what to make of the note. Why would he want to speak to her in the godswood, of all places, and why at such an ungodly hour of night? _He wants to meet in secret,_ she realized. She liked that not.

The minutes came and went, and came and went. The sun kissed the horizon, and then it was time for supper. Cersei took her meal with the children, as always. They were already in the small hall when she arrived. Sansa was with them as well, sat between Joffrey and Myrcella.

“How are my darlings?” she asked as she approached the table.

“Good,” Tom and Myrcella answered at once. Joff gave her a nod, and Sansa a smile.

A servant poured her broth from a still steaming kettle, alongside the garlic roasted chicken and golden Arbor wine. Tom and Myrcella resumed a quiet chat about their game of cyvasse, played with the set Tyrion had bought them from a Volantene merchant. Joffrey was too absorbed in his meal to say much. Sansa kept stealing glances at him as she solemnly spooned up her broth.

Cersei raised an eyebrow. “I had been meaning to ask,” she started, clearing her throat, “how is your father, dear?”

Sansa blinked. “He is better, I think. His leg still hurts him, but… he can walk some without his crutch. He has been working a lot. I don’t see him much.”

“He has been… busy,” Cersei agreed, “but there is so much happening right now. He has a very full plate. Not to worry, though, we will handle this,” she assured. “You will see more of him, soon enough.” Sansa nodded, and looked down.

Cersei paced away the rest of the evening in her chambers. Her maids readied her for bed, but she went to the window seat instead. _Lord Stark requests the presence of Her Grace in the godswood at midnight._ She hadn’t decided whether she would go or not. Sansa’s words didn’t comfort her any. Though, he had always been absorbed by his work. _Ever dutiful._

The knock came at an hour before midnight. “What is it?” she called through the door. “I hope you have noticed the hour, Ser Boros.”

“I have, Your Grace. It’s Lady Sansa,” he told her. “She seeks an audience with you, urgently.”

“Yes… One moment.”

Cersei put on a dressing gown and allowed Ser Boros to show the girl in. Sansa wore a cloak of soft grey velvet over her nightgown. Cersei remembered it, from that night at the inn. Tearstains streaked her pale cheeks now as they did then. “I didn’t mean to disturb you,” she said between sniffles, “but… it’s my father…”

 Cersei took her by the hands. “What is it, my darling?”

“He– he’s sending us away! Arya and I, he said he’s sending us back to the North.”

“He told you this?”

Sansa nodded, and knuckled away a few tears. “I don’t want to go, Your Grace. I want to stay with Joffrey, and you. Isn’t there something you can do? Joffrey and I are meant to be wed, I can’t go.”

“I cannot force your father to stay, my sweet… but I know how much you mean to my precious Joff, and my other darlings. I will see what I can do.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you!” Sansa kissed Cersei on the cheek. “You are so good to me, Your Grace. I will remember this always.”

Cersei woke Jocelyn after Sansa had left. “Come,” she told the maid. “I must dress.”

“Dress?” Jocelyn echoed, blinking the sleep from her eyes. “Your Grace, it is so late…”

“Yes yes, I know. Come along, I have matters to attend to.”

Cersei chewed her lip as her cousin opened the wardrobe. Her eyes slid over silks and brocades, belled and dagged and trumpeted sleeves in lavender and periwinkle and mint. She shook her head. “None of this matters,” she scoffed. What difference would it make? He was not Lancel, a callow youth to be swooned by her soft beauty, or Jaime to be enticed by a bared shoulder or peek of breast. This was stony Northern Ned Stark, and he would not be moved by a gown.

Jocelyn blinked. “Um…”

“Just choose one,” Cersei said dismissively. “It matters not.”

Cersei sighed as she began to undress. She didn’t even know what Ned wanted with her yet, and already she was stressed. It would not be anything good, she had decided, not with the current circumstances. If only she knew what.

Jocelyn came to her with a gown of pink satin. “Oh, I haven’t worn this in years,” she said as she stepped into it. She had gotten it as a wedding gift from Robert’s maternal grandmother, and stopped wearing it to spite him. The bodice was embroidered with antlers, picked out in silvery beads. Jocelyn was able to lace it shut.

The dress was paired with a cape of pink velvet lined with white rabbit fur. Jocelyn brushed out her hair until it was presentable. “Your Grace, might I ask…?”

“Where I’m going?” Cersei finished. She started to reach for her jewelry box, but decided against it. _It doesn’t matter._ “To the godswood, Lady Jocelyn.”

“The godswood?” she repeated. “But…” She decided against whatever she was going to say next. “It is very late, cousin.”

“I am aware,” Cersei said as she got to her feet, “and yet, I must go.”

Jocelyn straightened. “You cannot go alone. I’ll dress.”

“I didn’t ask you to accompany me…”

She paused on her way to her chamber. “Oh, of course. Forgive me.”

Cersei smirked. “Go ahead, dress. I command it.” It was good to know who cared.

She and Jocelyn walked arm in arm through the deserted castle grounds. Would that she could have taken Lancel with her to protect her from the ills of the night, but he had more important things to do, and was away with the king. _Jaime_ , her mind put in, but she pushed that away. It would not do to think of him right now. Besides, he would have never let her go. He would’ve gone himself, and tried to challenge Ned to a fight. Talking wasn’t his way. _That is why we’re in this mess._

The trees in the godswood towered over the red brick walls that surrounded it. Wrought iron gates opened to its dirt path, flanked by a pair of marble dragons. Their eyes were made of quartz, though in the moonlight Cersei couldn’t make out their color. She and Jocelyn separated there. “You will tell no one of this,” Cersei ordered. “Is that understood?”

“Yes, Your Grace. Only…” Cersei looked back, and raised an eyebrow. “Who… who is it you’re meeting?”

“Did I say I was meeting someone?”

Jocelyn bit her lip. “You said nothing, my queen.”

Cersei nodded. “No, I didn’t.” She turned on her heel, and strode into the wood.

She followed the path, illuminated only by the moonlight filtering through the branches arching over her head. Leaves rustled as the wind sighed through the trees. A few dead leaves skittered over the dirt. The air smelled of soil, lilacs, and grass.

She found Lord Stark in front of what should have been the heart tree, a weirwood cut down when the castle was built. He sat upon a marble bench, his cane beside him. His brown eyes were black in the dark. “Your Grace,” he said with a nod. “Forgive me if I do not stand. My leg has become bothersome as of late. The weather is changing.”

Cersei pulled at the shawl around her shoulders. “Winter is coming. Isn’t that right?” Ned raised an eyebrow, but he nodded. “You know, I spoke to your daughter, not long ago. She seems to think you are sending her back to Winterfell.”

“Does she now?” Ned asked.

Cersei nodded. “Maybe it is time to go home. The south doesn’t seem to agree with you.”

He chuckled. “Your brother, more like. Your brother….” He shook his head. “I didn’t call you here to speak of Sansa.”

“We are never truly speaking of Sansa,” she agreed as she sat down. “What is it you want, my lord?”

“I know the truth Jon Arryn died for.”

Cersei straightened. “Are you saying Lord Arryn was murdered?”

Ned actually cracked a smile. “Every time a Lannister has wed to a Baratheon, the union brought them children with black hair. Every time, until you and Robert.”

“My lord… I don’t know what you–”

“Jaime is their father,” he said bluntly. “Jon Arryn knew it, and you killed him for it.”

Cersei looked at him, thunderstruck. “No,” she managed to say, getting to her feet. “No, we didn’t…”

“Didn’t kill him, or…?”

She looked back, and pulled on her shawl. “…The Targaryens married brother to sister for 300 years to keep the bloodlines pure.” The words tumbled from her mouth like water over a ridge. “Jaime and I… we are more than that. We came into this world together. We…” _We belong together._

Ned nodded. “Bran saw you with him, didn’t he?”

“I never wanted that,” she insisted.

“And yet it happened.”

“You know better than most that Jaime is given to violent whims.” She touched her cheek lightly. “I never wanted that,” she said again. “I didn’t ask him for it. I would never kill a child. Never.”

“But a grown man…”

“We had nothing to do with Jon Arryn’s death. Jaime doesn’t use poison, and I… no. I don’t know who did that, but it wasn’t us.”

Ned stared at her a moment, but then he nodded. “If you say. Tell me, how is it you never bore Robert any children?”

“I did,” she admitted. Ned cocked his head in surprise. “Didn’t he tell you? We had a boy, just after we were married. He died of a fever. Since then he barely leaves his whores long enough to see my bed, and when he does… I finish him in other ways.” She shook her head. “He is always too drunk to remember in the morning.”

Ned nodded again, and looked down. “Have you always hated him?”

Cersei laughed bitterly. “I used to idolize him. Every girl in the Seven Kingdoms wanted him, but he was mine by oath. When I finally saw him on our wedding day in the Great Sept of Baelor, lean and fierce and black-bearded, it was the happiest moment of my life. Then he crawled on top of me that night, stinking of wine, and whispered in my ear, ‘ _Lyanna_ ’. Your sister was a corpse, and he still loved her more than me.” She barely noticed the tears in her eyes. “He was lucky to get even one child out of me. It was more than he deserved.” She sighed, and sat back down. “I always gave him more than he deserved.”

There was silence between them after that. Ned seemed to be at a loss for words, and Cersei… she immediately regretted her outburst. _It doesn’t matter,_ she reminded herself. This wouldn’t make a difference. It wouldn’t change what would come next.

“You know I have to tell him,” said Ned.

“You don’t,” Cersei countered with a shake of the head. “You don’t, but you will, because you are the honorable Eddard Stark, and you cannot lie to your dearest friend.”

“I will do it because it is right,” he corrected. “You must be gone by then. You, and your children.” She looked at him, and raised an eyebrow. “I… I will not have their blood on my hands. Go as far away as you can, with as many men as you can muster. Wherever you go, Robert’s wrath will follow.”

Cersei pulled her shawl tighter. _And what of my wrath?_ “You should have taken the realm for yourself,” she told him. “Jaime told me about the day King’s Landing fell. He was sitting on the Iron Throne and you made him give it up, in Robert’s name. You couldn’t have thought that he would make a good king, not truly. All you had to do was climb the steps yourself. Why?”

“The south doesn’t agree with me,” he said, staring at the moon.

She shook her head. “What a sad mistake.”

“I have made many mistakes in my life, Your Grace, plenty of bad choices, but that was never one of them.”

“Maybe so,” Cersei said as she got to her feet, “but when you play the game of thrones, Lord Stark, you win or you die.” She turned and began down the path. “There is no middle ground.”


	16. Cersei IX

Cersei was in Myrcella’s chambers when she heard the commotion in the halls. The day had dawned cold and dreary, and the princess’s rooms were the warmest in the castle. She rose from the chair in the day room. “What’s happened?” she asked as she leaned out the door.

Lancel looked up at her from the end of the hall. Spots of darkness splattered his blue doublet. His pale eyes were wide. “What is it, mother?” Cersei heard Myrcella ask behind her.

She pushed the princess away from the door gently. “Stay here, my sweet. I will return.”

Cersei met her younger cousin in the hall. “What’s happened?” she asked again, quietly.

“It was a boar, Your Grace.” Sweat plastered Lancel’s sandy blond hair to his brow. “It… it gored him.”

Cersei nodded slowly. By that time Robert had been laid in his bed, and Maester Pycelle was shuffling up the stairs to see him. The children’s servants were peeking out of their doors. “Keep them in their rooms,” she told them, and disappeared into the king’s chambers.

Men were crowded around the huge four-post bed. Ser Barristan was just inside the door, gripping the hilt of his sword, as if it would do anything. “Your Grace…” he started, “it is dreadful. You should not like to see.”

 _I would,_ she thought, but she stayed silent and moved past him. He didn’t try to stop her.

The maester had his assistants lighting a fire and soaking rags in wine. Cersei was just thinking that she’d have to conjure up a few tears when she saw the wound. It was deep and red, like a rabbit hole burrowing into Robert’s pallid flesh. Her breath left her lungs. “Look what that devil did to me,” Robert muttered to Lord Renly at the other side of his bed. She lowered herself into the king’s favorite chair as Pycelle began his work. _That devil. My savior._

The wound had been dressed when Joffrey arrived. One of his servants trailed behind him, face full of apology. “Joffrey…” she began.

“Let him in,” Robert grumbled. “Would you stop a boy from seeing his dying father?” Cersei bit her tongue, and sat back.

“Dying?” Joffrey echoed. “Pycelle… how?”

“He has lost quite a bit of blood,” the old maester told him. “There is aught else I can do, but give him tonics to help the pain.”

“You cannot die,” Joffrey told Robert as he kneeled at his bedside. “You won’t. You don’t know that.”

“But I do,” Robert told him. “I can feel it. I can smell it. It smells like death, don’t think I can’t tell.” He let out a sigh and took Joffrey’s hand. “I should have spent more time with you, taught you how to be a man. I was never meant to be a father…”

 _That much is true_ , Cersei thought.

Lord Stark arrived soon after that. She pulled the blanket on the back of the chair down over her day dress. She’d suddenly become cold. “I paid the bastard back, Ned,” Robert coughed out. “I drove my knife right through his brain.”

Ned looked to Renly, who told him, “The boar.”

Robert continued with his fevered ramblings. “I want the funeral feast to be the biggest the kingdoms ever saw. I want everyone to taste the boar that got me.”

“I think… I think we can arrange that,” Ned told him as he sat on the corner of the bed.

“See that you do. Get out, the rest of you,” Robert demanded. “I want to speak to Ned alone.”

“Robert…” she began.

“Out,” he bellowed, “all of you!”

As they filed out the room, she thought about what would come next. Joffrey had to be crowned sooner than later, but no sooner than was decent. Then, they’d have to deal with Lord Stark. She already had an appointment for Hand in mind, and regent as well, should he think to winkle his way into that. “My sweet,” she said to Joffrey, “let’s go back to your chambers. We need to talk.”

“No,” he told her bluntly. “I’m staying. I want to see him when they’re done.” Cersei opened her mouth, but looked at the others in the hall with them. _Not here._ She returned to her rooms alone.

Robert would not see anyone except the children so, after supper, she whiled the evening away in the gardens. She walked arm in arm with Jocelyn and Lancel down a row of roses, closing against the lowering sun. “He missed his thrust,” the latter was telling them. “It was the wine…”

“You must not blame yourself,” said Jocelyn. “You didn’t know what would happen.”

“‘Tis true,” Cersei agreed. “You only did as you were bid.”

“What I was bid,” Lancel echoed, looking down. “Yes…”

“My queen?” she heard someone call. They looked back to see Lord Baelish amongst the lilies. “I did not want to disturb you in such a tranquil place, but…” He glanced at her companions. “Could we speak alone?”

“What do you have to tell me, that you cannot say in front of my cousins?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“These are matters for the queen, concerning the king.” Something in his gaze told her he meant Joffrey, and not Robert.

“Stay,” she told them as Lord Baelish took her arm and led her toward the chrysanthemum blooms. “Is something wrong?”

“It’s Lord Stark,” he told her. She nodded. _It is always Lord Stark._ “Our dear King Robert’s last wish is for him to be regent to King Joffrey.”

She paused. “… How did you learn this?”

“Lord Eddard told me himself,” he said matter-of-factly. She straightened. “He came to me and showed me the paper. But that’s not all. He means to use his new power to pass your son over for the throne, and crown Stannis as king.”

This time Cersei stopped. She’d known it was coming, but she had to act shocked. “Why would he do such a thing?”

“He claims the king is not the father of your children.” Lord Petyr shook his head. “I did not know Lord Stark had it in him to make up such lies.”

“And why did he come to you?” she asked, turning on him.

“He hoped I would lend the City Guard to his cause. I am old friends with his wife, you see. He thinks that means I am bound to help him. He has promised to pay us most generously, but, ah…” He stroked his pointed beard. “Money is hard to spend, when your head is rotting on a spike.”

She gave him a nod. “Very true.”

Robert passed in the night. She was informed of such the next morning by Lancel, along with the news that Renly and his retainers were returning to Storm’s End to mourn. She went to Joffrey’s chambers after she had dressed. “Darling, you must hold court. There are matters we must attend to.”

“I don’t want to argue about politics,” he sighed out. “My father’s just died.”

“I am aware, sweet, but even when a king passes on, the sun still rises in the morning, and we must crown another.” He looked back at her. His eyes glistened in the grey light coming through the windows. “You will have a Hand, and a regent until you come of age, but you are the king now. These matters are your charge. You must see to them.”

He called everyone into the throne room around midday. The rain had started to fall outside the castle, turning the walls the color of blood. “I command the council to make all necessary arrangements for my coronation,” he told them solemnly. “I wish to be crowned within the fortnight. Today, though, I shall accept oaths of fealty from my loyal councilors.”

Lord Eddard stood amongst those on the floor. He didn’t kneel; instead, he handed a roll of parchment to Ser Barristan Selmy. “I believe no man here could question your honor,” he told the old knight.

Barristan ran a finger over the blot of wax sealing the roll. “King Robert’s seal, unbroken,” he told them. He broke it with his own hands. “Lord Eddard Stark is herein named Protector of the Realm, to rule as regent until the heir comes of age,” he read.

Cersei nodded and rose from her seat beside the Iron Throne. “May I see that, Ser?” Barristan handed her the letter, tipping his head politely as he did. The words were clear across the parchment. They were in Ned’s hand _._ She would have to use that. “Is this meant to be your shield, Lord Stark, a piece of paper?”

“Those were the king’s words,” he reminded her.

She motioned to Joffrey on the throne. “We have a new king now.” She let out a sigh, and tugged at her sleeve. She wore the same dress she had when she’d met with him that night in the godswood. “Lord Eddard, when last we spoke you offered me some… counsel. Allow me to return the favor. Bend the knee, my lord. My son knows mercy, just as his father did. Swear your loyalty to him, and he will allow you to return to Winterfell.”

Ned met her gaze, his eyes as hard as the stone of his ancient seat. “Your son has no claim to the throne.”

“Lair!” Joffrey hissed, getting to his feet.

“You condemn yourself with your own mouth,” she said with a shake of the head. “Ser Barristan, seize this traitor.”

The Lord Commander drew his sword. Ned’s men drew theirs in response. The gold cloaks were drawing as well, and the Lannister men-at-arms. “Ser Barristan is a good man,” Ned told his. “Do him no harm.” Then he turned to Janos Slynt, the frog-faced man in the cloth-of-gold cloak of the Lord Commander of the City Watch. “Take the queen and her children into custody. Escort them back to the royal apartments and keep them there, under guard.”

“You can’t do that!” Joffrey yelled. “I am the king!”

“There will be no bloodshed in this hall!” A hush fell over the room at the sound of her voice. “Tell your men to lay down their swords,” she said to Lord Stark now. “No one needs to die.”

He gazed upon her with stony resolve. “Do it,” he said to Lord Slynt.

But it was he the gold cloaks seized, along with his men. Littlefinger himself took Ned, putting a handsome dagger to his throat. “Clear the room,” she told the Lannister men. “The oaths of fealty must wait, for now.” She beckoned the rest of the council forward. “I do not want to do this, but Lord Stark has given us little choice. His household must be seized. We don’t know how many of Eddard’s men knew of his treachery. None of them are to be trusted. The girls will be taken to the Maidenvault and held there under guard.”

Pycelle nodded. “Lord Slynt has proven his loyalty.”

“No,” said Joffrey. “This is a job for our most trusted men. Grandfather’s men-at-arms. The Hound will lead them, with Ser Meryn and Ser Boros. I’ll give them the commands myself.” He turned and marched out through the king’s door.

“Your Grace,” Varys said to her, wringing his plump wrists, “I fear this will not go over well with the Northern lords, Lord Eddard’s son least of all. Hoster Tully is like to take offense as well, on behalf of his goodson.”

“And Catelyn Stark still holds Tyrion hostage, yes,” she finished. “You fear we have a war on our hands?”

“I am only saying that we do not want the North as our enemies.” She didn’t want that either. She had warned Joffrey of the dangers. Though, it may have been too late for such. “If we knew there was some way to avert that, we would all be better for it.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” she told Varys.

So she sent Lord Baelish to the Maidenvault the next day, to fetch Sansa. She awaited the pair in the king’s solar with Lord Varys. Rain poured down the windows, casting wavering shadows across the room. “I do not like this weather,” she muttered, pulling her morning jacket closed.

“The gods weep for our noble king,” Lord Varys said, absently toying with his dagged sleeves.

Maester Pycelle reached them first. He tottered into the solar, his chain clinking beneath his lengthy beard. “My apologies for my lateness, Your Grace. These old legs do not move as they used to.”

“I do not hold your age against you, Pycelle.” _You were not late to Robert’s deathbed_ , she thought, but there was no point in bringing that up.

“My queen,” he began as he sat down, “I have been thinking about this betrothal to Lady Sansa. How do we know she can be trusted? She has a traitor’s blood.”

Cersei shook her head. “I took you for a man of reason, Pycelle. She is a thirteen-year-old girl.”

He nodded. “She is innocent now, but what schemes might she plan in ten years?”

“It is a risk…” Varys began. Cersei raised an eyebrow in his direction. “But it is one we may have to take, for peace.”

“Exactly,” she agreed. “Sansa loves my son dearly. She would do anything for him.”

Petyr arrived shortly after with the girl on his arm. She wore her grey velvet cloak, and a gown of ivory samite that Joffrey had given her. _I might as well know what she looks like in white,_ Cersei had heard him say, _if I have to marry her._ She curtseyed gracefully before she sat down on the other side of the table. “Your Grace,” she started, “it is so good to see you. It feels like I've been in the Maidenvault for so long.”

“You haven’t been forgotten,” Cersei assured her. “We thought it better to shield you from this ugliness.”

“Do you have news of my father?” she asked. “I’ve heard nothing of him since yesterday. I haven’t seen Arya either. She had been with her dancing master that morning. And my septa, she told me to go to my room, before the guards came.”

Cersei nodded gravely. Joffrey’s scourge of the Tower of the Hand the previous afternoon had been deep, and violent. The queen had seen the carnage herself that night. “Gods, Joffrey, what have you done?”

 “What I had to do,” he told her. “They fought us. You were right. They were traitors too.” Septa Mordane was dead, for her part in conspiring to deliver Sansa back to the North, per Joffrey. This was the first she’d heard of Arya, though. One daughter sat before her unharmed, but… She shook her head. _I said they were to be taken to the Maidenvault._ Arya must have hidden away. She’d send men to find her.

“There has been an unfortunate turn of events regarding your father,” she told Sansa.

“Oh no, is he alright? What’s happened? Is it to do with the king?”

Varys nodded. “Your father has proved to be an awful traitor, my dear. King Robert’s body was not even cold before he began plotting to steal Joffrey’s rightful throne.”

Sansa let out a shocked gasp. “No, he wouldn’t do that. He knows how much I love Joffrey. There must be some kind of mistake, my lord. The king was his friend…”

Petyr shook his head. “So we thought, my lady. So we thought.”

Cersei placed a hand over Sansa’s. “Sweetling, you are innocent of any wrongdoing. We know this, and yet… Maester Pycelle does not think I should let you marry my son. He says you have a traitors’ blood, and will be hatching your own treasons in the future.”

Sansa gaped as the maester nodded ponderously. “I’m not a traitor, I promise. I’ll be a good wife to Joffrey, I won’t hatch anything.”

“I know you are a good girl,” Cersei told her, squeezing her hand. “You shall have a chance to prove your loyalty. You must write to your brother Robb, and your mother and grandfather as well. You know your letters, I trust?” Sansa nodded. “Word of your father’s arrest will reach them soon. Better your hand that tells them, than some gossip that travels up the Kingsroad. You must urge them to come to King’s Landing and swear fealty to Joffrey. Tell them to keep the king’s peace.”

Sansa blinked. “Robb wouldn’t call the banners, would he?”

“I cannot say what Robb will do, only what might happen in turn. Do this, and you will help your father. I will be sure to tell Joffrey. He will remember it always.”

Sansa nodded. “I’ll do it. Whatever it takes. For Joffrey, yes, and my father.”


	17. Catelyn VIII

“You’ve had this since dawn?”

Catelyn reached out for the letter, but Lysa snatched it back. “He sent it to me, not you,” she said loftily. “I’ve only shown you as a courtesy.”

Cat gaped at her. “A courtesy? My husband has been taken prisoner, my son intends to declare war…”

“A war, against the Lannisters?” Lysa sniffed. “You should go to Robb, and teach him patience.”

Cat crossed her arms over her chest. “My husband rots in a dungeon and you speak of patience.” She shook her head. “He is your brother by law. Does family mean nothing to you?”

“It means everything to me!” Lysa snapped. “I will not risk Robin’s life to get caught up in another of your husband’s wars!”

Cat shook her head again. _Why am I here?_ Lysa had made it clear that she and Ser Rodrik had overstayed what little welcome they’d had after the trial. And now there was this. War was almost upon them, and her sister wanted to keep hiding in the mountains. “You will not support us, then? Do I understand you correctly?”

“Mother, I’m hungry,” Robin whined from the doorway.

“Later, darling, you just ate,” Lysa told him softly. She turned back to Cat, her face a mask of ice. “You’re always welcome here, sister, but if you’re asking me to send men from the Vale to fight…”

“That is what I ask.”

“Then I can only disappoint you. They killed my husband, Cat. You say they pushed your boy from a tower window. These people will do anything.”

“That is why we have to stop them!”

“The knights of the Vale will stay in the Vale where they belong,” Lysa told her firmly, “to protect their lord.”

Catelyn left with Ser Rodrik the following day. Marillion stayed behind in the Eyrie (Lord Robin had taken to his singing), but Ser Willis Wode accompanied them back down the mountain. “If what they’re saying is true, I must return to Harrenhal.”

“That would be for the best,” Catelyn agreed with a nod. Lord Tywin was focused on Riverrun, in retribution for her stunt with Tyrion, but Harrenhal was invaluable in the defense of the Kingsroad. The man who claimed it would control the path to King’s Landing through the Riverlands – a path her son would tread, no doubt.

The high road was eerily quiet once they passed the Bloody Gate. Once or twice Cat would hear the rattle of the brush and whip around, only find an animal staring back. “Maybe they’ve had enough savagery,” Ser Rodrik said when they stopped to rest one day. The wind whispered through the brush and sent the clouds scuttling across the bright blue sky. Cat shivered into her blanket.

It didn’t take as long to come down the mountain as it had to go up. The trio stood upon a crest at the foot of the high road days later, overlooking the Inn at the Crossroads in the distance. It was swarmed by Lannister soldiers. “They’ve come east,” Cat said, looking over the sea of tents. “Have they left Riverrun?”

“We should get to Moat Cailin,” said Rodrik. Cat nodded in agreement.

“I would separate from you here, but…” Ser Willis bit his lip, “that don’t seem prudent.”

“No it doesn’t.” Lord Tywin was poised to take Harrenhal, from this position. “It seems we cannot follow the Kingsroad back north.”

“No, but there’s other ways,” Ser Willis told them.

Cat nodded. “Yes, I remember. My father brought me to these parts as a child. We’ll go around,” she declared, mounting her horse. “We may be able to take the road once we’re north of Darry.”

They followed an old game trail out of the foothills, and into the rolling fields of the Riverlands. The Lannisters had scorched the fields south of Darry, leaving rows of blackened crops. Every so often they would pass the burnt-out husk of a farmhouse, abandoned by its owners. “Is this the price my father is to pay for my actions?” she asked once, as they sat amongst the ruins of an old barn. “I’ve heard that Tyrion is the least favored son, but from this I’d think he was the heir.”

“And this is only a taste,” Ser Rodrik said with a shake of the head. “Gods save us if something happens to Ser Jaime. We’ll pay in fire and blood.”

They continued north, watching the green slowly seep back into the world. Grasses turned to reeds, and the ground became muddy, sucking lightly at their horses’ hooves. “We’re approaching the marshes,” she told them. “We will have to follow the road soon.”

“Whose lands are these?” Rodrik asked.

“Lord Frey, I think,” Willis informed. “We should be nearing the Twins soon.”

They followed the sound of the Green Fork back to the Kingsroad. It was mercifully free of Lannisters. Cat could see the Twins towering in the distance. The identical gray castles spanned the Green Fork, the only crossing north of the Ruby Ford. “I wonder if Lord Walder will come to Robb’s aid,” she thought aloud.

“He will if your father commands it,” Ser Rodrik said.

“You would think, but Lord Walder rarely acts unless it is to his own benefit. During the rebellion he didn’t march until the war was all but won. He was like Lord Tywin, in that. If the Lannisters raze his lands it may make a difference, but hopefully it will not come to that.”

North of that castle they entered the marshes proper. Reeds waved along the side of the road, circling green pools of stagnant water. The smell of mud permeated the air.

It was there that they encountered the first of the Stark soldiers, when they were still ten miles out from Greywater Watch. “You there!” called one with the Cerwyn axe embroidered on his breast. “State your business.”

“My son,” Cat responded as she removed the scarf wound about her head.

The soldier’s eyes widened. “Forgive me, my lady, I didn’t recognize you.”

“No harm done. Tell me, where might I find him?”

“M’lord is at Moat Cailin with the better part of the force. I can spare a few men to escort you north. We are in friendly territory, but the swamps are plenty dangerous besides.”

She nodded. “That would be most appreciated.”

He led them to a camp of about two-thousand men settled right on the Kingsroad to rest for the night. The next morning, they departed with their new companions to travel into the deepest part of the swamps. Here the Kingsroad was raised, allowing them to overlook the damp earth below. The trees knit themselves together, the branches as tangled as the roots were under the water. Pale moss dangled overhead, long enough to brush them as they passed.

Moat Cailin was more ruin than castle. The collection of ancient towers stood sentinel over the Kingsroad, cloaked by morning mist. Only a few tents stood on the marshy land outside. Cat knew the rest were to be found inside, along with her son.

Cat gave the Cerwyn soldiers her leave to return to their party. They were quickly replaced by White Harbor knights. “Where might I find my son?” she posed to them now.

“In the meeting room of the Gatehouse Tower,” one told her

“Thank you. I would be most grateful if you found accommodations for our friend Ser Willis. He is a knight of Harrenhal and most loyal.” She turned to him. “I will be sure to tell my son of everything you’ve done for us, Ser. That is a promise.”

Another Manderly knight led her and Ser Rodrik to the meeting room. They found Robb looking over a map of the Riverlands drawn on a roll of sheepskin, with Grey Wind on one side and Theon on the other. A host of Northern lords surrounded them. She recognized Greatjon Umber on sight through his massive beard (though he was short a few fingers on his right hand), and Maege Mormont, the only woman in the group. Lord Galbart Glover, whose castle was so close to their own, was a friendly face as well. The others she only knew by their sigils, save Roose Bolton, whose striking pale blue eyes preceded him.

The Manderly knight announced her. “Lord Stark, your lady mother.”

Robb looked up from his map, and his eyes lit up. “Mother.” He had a beard again. It made him look five years older.

“You are a welcome sight in these troubling times,” Roose Bolton told her as Galbart Glover thumped Ser Rodrik on the back.

“We didn’t think we would see you until we passed the Neck,” said the Greatjon.

“The Eyrie didn’t quite agree with us,” she told him. “I know you will forgive me, my lords, but I would speak to my son alone.”

The Greatjon got to his feet. “You heard her, move your asses! Out, out. You too Greyjoy,” he said to Theon, still hovering by her son’s side, “are you bloody deaf?” Before he left the room himself, he turned to her and said, “Have no fear, my lady. We’ll shove our swords up Tywin Lannister’s bunghole, then it’s on to the Red Keep to free Ned.”

Cat watched them go. “If that is your plan,” she started as she turned back to Robb, “then I hope you know Lord Tywin has settled himself at the place where the Kingsroad meets the high road and the river road. We nearly rode into him as we were leaving the Vale.”

He nodded. “We will deal with him when the time comes. Thank you for that. My scouts haven’t moved that far south yet. Dare I ask if you saw anything else?”

“Scorched earth. Tywin Lannister means to burn the Riverlands, for a son he barely loves, if what they say is true.”

“He is still a Lannister,” Robb said with a shrug. “What happened to him?”

“Lord Tyrion requested a trial-by-combat. He put his fate in the hands of the gods and they deemed him innocent. I’ve heard nothing of him since he left the Eyrie. Might be he and his sellsword ran afoul of the mountain clans, or maybe they made it to his father. I don’t know.”

Robb brought a hand to his chin. “I see. I was hoping you still had ahold of him. We might have sent him to the queen in exchange for the girls.” He let out a sigh. “But I won’t argue with the gods.”

Cat watched him lace his fingers together atop the table. He looked so much like Ned when he did that. “I remember the day you came into this world red-faced squalling,” she told him, shaking her head in disbelief. _Lord Stark._ “Now I find you leading a host to war.”

“There was no one else,” he told her

Cat glanced back at the door. “Who were those men I saw here?”

“None of them are Starks.”

“All of them are seasoned in battle,” she argued.

“And I greatly appreciate their counsel because of it. I cannot go back to Winterfell. I can’t. There was a letter, mum, from Sansa. She wrote you one too.” He pulled a piece of parchment from a bag by the wall. It bore the Stark sigil stamped in grey wax. Cat broke the seal and read. “Look at the things they made her say. _Keep the king’s peace._ And not a mention of Arya. It’s already happening. We have no choice but to fight.”

Cat read the letter again, and again. _No choice…_ “How many men do you have?”

“Eighteen-thousand here. If I go to King’s Landing and bend the knee, they’ll never let me leave.” He shook his head. “Our only hope is to defeat them in the field.”

“But if you should lose… I trust Maester Luwin has taught you of what happened to the Targaryen children when the Mad King fell, on Lord Tywin’s orders. The years haven’t made him any kinder. If you lose, your father dies, your sisters die… you die.”

Robb looked down at the map in front of him. “I guess that makes it simple, then.”

“I suppose.” Cat wrapped her arms around herself. “Have no worries. I will be the one returning to Winterfell.”

“I’d sooner you stayed. You know these lands better than any of us. Your counsel would be welcome.”

“This isn’t my place,” she said with a shake of the head. “I should be at home, with Rickon and Bran.”

Robb nodded. “If that’s what you want. Bran’s woken up, you know. He’s healthier, stronger.” He made to say something else, but decided against it. Instead he told her, “His wolf is almost as tall as he is.”

“That is good.” Her heart was bursting to see her baby boys again, but… She looked down. “It would comfort an old woman to know where you are going next.”

Robb sat down in the seat at the head of the table. “I know you will forgive me, but I can’t tell you everything.” She nodded. _He is learning._ “We found a Lannister scout yesterday. He was counting my numbers. We sent him back with a message. Twenty-thousand Northerners marching south.”

“I saw the camp at the Crossroads Inn. He has at least ten-thousand more men than you. You can’t mean to meet him in open battle.”

“Lord Tywin will meet someone, but it won’t be me. _I_ am going to Riverrun, to relieve Uncle Edmure and the rest of grandfather’s men from Ser Jaime’s half of the western army.” Cat allowed herself a smile when she realized. _He is **learning.**_ “But to do that, I will need to cross the Green Fork. And for that, I need the Twins. I thought we could trust Lord Frey, since he’s sworn to Riverrun, but the scouts tell me he hasn’t answered the call. There is no telling what he’ll do.”

“He’s made a habit of that. My father took to calling him ‘the Late Lord Frey’ because of it. Expect nothing of him, and you will never be surprised,” she advised. “Your best bet will be to make him your friend. He has a prickly temperament, and a lot of men. Convince him that he’ll profit from aiding you, and he is yours. Though, the price of crossing will be heavy.”

“For me, or for him?” Robb crossed his arms. “I cannot bloody my men on the Twins, though. It would be a waste. We will march on the castle, and I’ll speak to this Lord Frey myself. We’ll see about the price.”

Cat shook her head. “You can’t. If you go alone he'll sell you to the Lannisters, or throw you in a dungeon. Or kill you.”

“I cannot have other men doing my bargaining for me,” he said stubbornly.

Part of her wanted to chastise him for caring more about his image than his safety, but another part knew what he said was true. Even if he did allow it, he had no river lords on his side yet. Lord Frey wouldn’t take well to a Northerner unless it was a Stark.

“You are right. You cannot trust any other men with this… But me? That is something else.” _I trust myself._


	18. Catelyn IX

Another raven fell from the sky.

It landed in the damp grass with a soft _thump._ Theon’s arrow shivered in its flank. He picked it up and removed a roll of parchment from its leg. “It’s a nameday message, for his granddaughter Walda,” he announced.

“That’s what he would have us think,” Cat retorted.

“Keep shooting them down,” Robb told Theon. “I won’t have Frey reporting our movements to the Lannisters.” Cat nodded in agreement.

Their group of three turned back toward the impromptu camp set up on the eastern side of the Green Fork. The Twins loomed in the distance behind them, guarding the river. “You’d think the riverlords would be eager to help us,” Theon muttered.

“The rest we should be able to depend on,” Cat told him, “but Lord Walder is a more fickle type of man.”

“Expect nothing of him and you’ll never be surprised,” Robb repeated. “Mother, are you sure you should be the one to treat with him?”

“I’m certain. I have known Walder Frey since I was a girl. He would never harm me unless he saw a profit in it. You have eighteen-thousand men on this side of the river, and Seagard lies three days ride on the other side, with six-thousand already pledged to our cause. That should dissuade him for the nonce.”

They readied a horse for her, and she rode to the gates with an honor guard of ten men. As she mounted the stone path leading to the portcullis, she could see a sea of tents on the other side of the river.

“State your business,” a Frey knight told them. The weasel-ish look of his face told her that he was a Frey by blood. Son or grandson, she didn’t know.

“I seek an audience with Lord Walder regarding crossing,” she told him.

“Just you?” he asked, eyeing her honor guard.

“Yes. My companions will remain here.”

He looked her up and down once more, but gave her a nod. “My grandfather is in the common room of this east tower. Follow me, if you please. The grooms will see to your horse.” Cat dismounted, and followed.

The Twins were as grey as Winterfell, but half the size and not so warm. The knight led her down a shadowy hall laid with dusty carpets, toward a room at the end echoing with voices. They emerged in a common room full of Freys. Lord Walder sat in a throne of oak and basalt carved in the likeness of his twin towers, surrounded by what seemed to be every adult man in his brood, arguing about something or other. The only woman besides her was a girl at least 80 years his junior, standing next to his chair. She didn’t look to be related. She must have been his new wife.

“Grandfather,” the knight called, “I present the Lady Catelyn Stark.”

A hush fell over the room. Lord Walder looked up, the loose skin under his neck wobbling. “What do you want?” he asked, raising a hairless eyebrow.

“It is a great pleasure to see you again after so many years,” she told him.

“Oh, spare me,” he spat, waving a spotted hand. “I’ve seen the army camped at my doorstep with my own eyes. They might be going, but anyone could see all those tents. Your boy’s too proud to come before me himself.” He shook his head and chewed at something in his mouth. “What am I supposed to do with you?”

“Father,” one of the many men along the wall started, “you forget yourself.”

Lord Walder squinted at him. “Who asked you? You’re not Lord Frey yet, not until I die. Do I look dead to you?” That must have been Ser Stevron, he was talking to, his eldest son.

“Father please…” another began.

“I need lessons in courtesy from you, bastard?” Lord Walder jerked his neck toward another one. “Your mother would still be a milkmaid if I hadn’t squirted you into her belly.” Walder Frey had a number of base born sons, and that could have been any of them. All she knew is that he wasn’t old enough to be Black Walder, whose mother hadn’t been a milkmaid besides.

Lord Walder shook his head again. “Alright.” He motioned to Catelyn. “Come forward.” She stepped out of the doorway and into the center of the room. He clapped his hands together. “There. Now that I’ve observed the courtesies, perhaps my sons will do me the honor of shutting their mouths.”

Grumbles of discontent rolled through the sons. Cat could feel their eyes on her back. “Is there somewhere we can talk?” she asked Lord Frey.

“We’re talking right now,” he told her. Cat blinked. He sighed. “Fine. Out, all of you!” His sons got to their feet and started to file out of the room. He slapped his wife on the rump. “You too.” Cat looked after the girl as she scurried through the doorframe. “You see that? Fifteen she is. A little flower, and her honey’s all mine.” He licked his lips. “Your father didn’t come to the wedding.”

“He is quite ill, my lord.”

“Didn’t come to the last one either. Or the one before that.” He spat on the stone floor. “Your family has always pissed on mine.”

“My lord, I–”

He held up hand to stop her. “Don’t deny it, you know it’s true. The fine Lord Tully would never marry any of his children to mine.”

“I’m sure there were reasons why–”

“I didn’t need reasons, I needed to get rid of sons and daughters. You see how they pile up.” He shook his head and chewed some more. “Why are you here?”

“To ask you to open your gates, so my son and his bannermen may cross the Trident and be on their way.”

“And why should I let them?” he asked, crossing his arms.

“You said you have seen the tents, my lord. If you could count all the men you’d see than there are twenty-thousand of them.”

“They’ll be twenty-thousand corpses when Tywin Lannister gets here. Don’t try and frighten me, Lady Stark.” He shook his head once more. “Your husband’s in a cell beneath the Red Keep, and your son’s got no fur to keep his balls warm.”

“You swore an oath to my father,” she reminded him.

“And I swore oaths to the crown too, if I remember right. Joffrey’s king now, which makes your boy and his corpses-to-be nothing but rebels. If I had the sense the gods gave a fish, I’d hand you both over to the Lannisters.”

Cat took a step forward. “And yet you haven’t. Why?”

“Oh, no no no,” he said, waggling his finger at her. “I’m the one to ask questions. Tell me why I should waste even a minute of my time on you.”

She emerged from the castle an hour later. Robb was waiting for her at the edge of the camp, speaking to the Greatjon and Lord Bolton. He looked up when she reached him. “How did it go?”

“Lord Frey has granted you crossing. His men are yours as well, save the four-hundred he will keep here to hold the bridge against any who would pursue you.”

The Greatjon blinked. “Huh.”

“And what does he want in return?” Robb asked.

“You will be taking on his son Olyvar as your squire. He expects a knighthood in good time.”

“And?”

“Arya will marry his son Waldron,” she continued, “when they both come of age.”

“She won’t like that,” he said with a shake of the head. “What else?”

“Else?” the Greatjohn echoed. “That’s much more than he could have hoped for.”

“Some men reach ever further once you give them a little ground,” Roose told him.

“Never has it been more true,” Cat agreed. “The last condition is that, once the fighting is done, you will marry one of his daughters or granddaughters, whichever you prefer. He has a number he thinks will be suitable.”

Robb nodded. “I see.”

“Do you consent?” she asked.

“I’ve not been given much choice,” he admitted. He turned back for the camps. “Come. It’s time to make the crossing.”


	19. Cersei X

Cersei woke to a blue sky clear of clouds that morning. She opened the curtains herself, and basked in the sunlight streaming through her window. Jocelyn entered with a glass of lemon water for her. “These are the makings of a good day,” Cersei told her as she looked out over the city. The Great Sept of Baelor was off in the west, its silver dome gleaming in the sun.

By then Senelle had joined them as well, and busied herself by laying out the queen’s jewelry on the vanity. Jocelyn opened the wardrobe. “I heard tell it was dreadful cold outside when I was down in the kitchens,” she told her. Cersei placed a hand on the glass of her window. It told the same story. “Shall you have the pink and silver again?”

“No, not that one,” she answered as she watched the foggy imprint fade away. “Joffrey will be wearing his mourning clothes. I’ll do the same.”

Jocelyn found the black with the golden flowers embroidered on the sleeves for her. Senelle placed a belt of pressed steel plated with gold around her waist, and a chain of gold links on her neck. She remembered the last time she had worn this outfit, when she’d spoken to Jaime on the balcony in the throne room. It felt like it had happened a lifetime ago. The image of Jon Arryn’s stone eyes resurfaced in her mind. She sent them away with a shake of the head.

She and Joffrey broke their fast together, alone in the small hall. He wore a handsome doublet of black brocade slashed with golden silk. He was quiet as he ate, as always. “Have they readied Lord Stark?” she asked.

“Ser Ilyn will have him when I call for him,” Joffrey told her. “Has there been news of Ser Barristan?”

“None, I fear.” They had released the old knight from his service as Lord Commander. Jaime was to take his place, once he returned. When he refused the lands they had set aside for him, he marched out of the Red Keep with gold cloaks on his tail. “We’ve nothing to fear from him. If they do not find him, he will rot away in whatever hole he’s chosen to hide in.”

Joffrey got to his feet. “I’d rather his head rotting on a spike.”

“We’ve more than enough of them,” she said back.

He gazed down at her with eyes that reminded her of her father. “I’m not so sure.” He left her to finish her meal in silence.

The sun was high in the sky when their procession prepared to leave the Red Keep, but the air was frigid. Jocelyn put her in the same fox fur trimmed coat she had worn while in Winterfell. “It could snow, if there were clouds,” she told Lancel as he led her across the noisy yard.

“Then I am glad there are none,” he responded. “A summer snow in the south. I could not imagine it.”

He gave her a hand up into her litter. Across the way, she saw Sansa huddled beneath a heavy black cloak, staring back at the castle beside Sandor Clegane in his Kingsguard whites. Cersei looked back herself. Lord Eddard was being led down the front steps with a hood over his head by Ser Ilyn Payne. She closed her curtains.

The procession made its way through the streets of King’s Landing toward Visenya’s Hill, and the Great Sept of Baelor. They had worked this out some time ago, when word of the Northern army passing the Neck had reached the Red Keep, and Sansa had plead for her father’s life in court. Ned was to confess his crimes on the steps of the sept, in the eyes of gods and men, and Joffrey would grant his mercy and send him north, to live out his days with his brother and bastard on the Wall. It was not exactly what the king had wanted, but it was what they needed to end this war.

Cersei listened to the sounds of the city as the party began to climb the hill. She heard a hundred hundred voices outside the litter, so loud they almost drowned Ser Preston’s calls to make way for the king. She peeked out and saw the smallfolk following their party like a rain cloud, flooding the Street of the Gods behind them. She closed her curtains once more against the cold wind blowing up the road.

The procession stopped at the crown of the hill. Ser Meryn helped her down from the litter. He and Arys Oakheart led her, Joffrey, Sansa, and what was left of the small council through the growing crowd in the plaza at the foot of the sept. She felt the eyes of Baelor the Blessed following her and her son up the many stairs.

Ser Ilyn pulled Lord Eddard down from his horse and yanked off his hood. He was gaunt from the weeks in the black cells, his ragged clothes hanging loose on his frame. The smallfolk roared insults as he was herded toward the stairs. “Coward!” she heard them scream. “Traitor, traitor!”

Ser Ilyn forced him to kneel on the steps in front of them. The High Septon emerged through the open doors of the sept. He put up his hands for quiet. “It is my understanding that you wish to confess your crimes, my lord?”

Ned nodded weakly. “I do.” He raised his head to the crowd in the plaza. “I am Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Hand of the King. I come before you to confess my treason.” There was a burst of discontent, and the septon raised his hands once more. “I betrayed the faith of my king, and the trust of my friend Robert. I swore to protect and defend his children, but before his blood was cold I plotted to murder his son, and seize the throne for myself.”

“Traitor!” another person shouted, a woman this time. Others yelled their approval.

Lord Stark continued. “Let the High Septon and Baelor Blessed bear witness to what I say: Joffrey Baratheon is the one true heir to the Iron Throne. By the grace of all the gods, he is Lord of the Seven Kingdoms...” He looked back at Joffrey on the steps above him. Her son’s gaze was cool. “And Protector of the Realm.”

The crowd let out a fresh round of jeers. The High Septon stepped forward, his white silk robes flashing in the sun. “As do we sin, so too we suffer,” he said solemnly. “This man has confessed his crimes in the sights of gods and men. The gods are just, but beloved Baelor taught us that they can also be merciful.” He turned to Joffrey. “What is to be done with this traitor, Your Grace?”

The king stepped forward, gleaming in black and gold. “My mother wishes me to let Lord Eddard join the Night’s Watch. Stripped of all titles and powers, he would serve the realm in permanent exile. And my Lady Sansa, she has begged mercy for her father.” He looked back at them over his shoulder. Sansa gave him a small smile. Cersei nodded and pulled at her jacket.

“But they have the soft hearts of women!” he exclaimed. “So long as I am your king, treason shall never go unpunished. Ser Ilyn, bring me his head!”

Cersei froze. Gasps and yells rippled through the smallfolk in the plaza. Sansa grabbed her arm and gasped in horror. “No, you promised!”

Ser Ilyn stepped forward, a hooded shadow. His hand caressed the hilt of his greatsword on his back. Cersei took Joffrey by the shoulder. “Tell him to stop,” she whispered. Sansa was crying behind her. “Tell him! You cannot do this–”

“I can, and I will.” He pushed her hand away. “Everyone will know what a traitor is worth in my realm.”

Ser Ilyn pulled his sword from the scabbard. The rippled steel gleamed blue and grey in the sunlight. _Ice._ “Joffrey please,” Sansa sobbed. “You promised me, you promised.”

“I said I would give your father mercy, and that’s what I mean to give him – the mercy of a swift death.” Sansa let out a wail that cut through sound of the crowd like a knife. Joffrey turned back to Ser Ilyn and said, “Do your work.”

“This is madness!” Pycelle was saying, and Varys was pleading and wringing his wrists, but Joffrey was deaf to sense. The Hound grabbed Sansa around the waist as she tried to reach her father. Cersei’s hands were starting to shake. Ser Ilyn raised the sword, and she turned away from the scene.

The large oaken doors of the sept remained open behind them. Cersei could see the huge statues of the Seven that ringed the sunken floor of the sanctuary. The hunched, skeletal form of the Stranger faced her, its scythe glimmering in a shaft of dusty sunlight. Ice swung through the air with a dull _whoosh._ A flock of crows burst from a nearby roof.


	20. Catelyn X

She didn’t think she could bear to rise from bed the next day, but she did.

Word had reached them the previous evening, on a raven sent from King’s Landing, addressed to her. “The Hand of the King is dead,” wrote Petyr’s small, neat hand. “I am so sorry Cat.”

She had handed the letter to her son without a word. “No,” she heard him say behind her, “no, no.” She couldn’t focus on anything except the scars on her hands. She felt like she had been stabbed in the heart with the same dagger. How was she supposed to go on without Ned?

But she had to. She couldn’t fall into another spell. _I have to._

Cat made herself get up and dressed and down to the morning room. Riverrun was quiet, save for the sound of rain on its sandstone walls. The servants didn’t seem to know what to say, so they said nothing at all. _That suits me just fine_ , she thought. She didn’t want anyone’s pity. That would only make it worse.

She broke her fast alone in somber silence, as water poured down the diamond-shaped panes of the windows. The shadows danced around her as candles flickered in the sconces on the wall. _The dead,_ she thought as she watched them stretch and shift across the room. Over there were the two-thousand men that died in the Whispering Wood, crowded along the western wall, and there the other five-hundred they had lost retaking the castle. Ned’s was the darkest, though, crouched in a corner by a window, hidden behind a shaft of grey sunlight.

She sat with her father for a while after that. He lay sleeping in his handsome four-post bed, which had been moved to look out over the confluence of the Red Fork and the Tumblestone through his balcony door. “We Tullys draw our strength from the river,” he had told her once.

Her father had been a big man in his prime – he was as tall as Ned, though not so wide – but under his covers, gaunt from sickness, he seemed as small as Bran had after his fall. She took his hand and stared out of the doors at the grey world beyond. _Make him strong again,_ she begged the river. _Let him open his eyes and see._ The only answer she received was the sound of water rushing beyond the walls. She gripped her father’s hand tighter as he inhaled deeply. “Please. I cannot lose you too. Not now. Not yet.”

One of the maids brought her a meal when Maester Vyman came to feed her father. They also brought a basket filled with twigs. “I thought you might want to make a prayer wheel,” he told her. “Your father said you used to weave them, when you were young.”

The wood was wet and pliable in her hands. She could, she wanted to, but if she started there and then she wouldn’t move from her father’s bedside for days. _Besides,_ she thought as she stood and thanked them for the food and wood, _I wouldn’t know where to start._

Catelyn’s mind turned to Bran as she returned to her chambers, a plate in one hand and the basket in the other. He and Rickon were all alone in the North, with no mother or brother to guide them. _My sweet boy, only ten years old, now the Lord of Winterfell._ Robb had named Ser Rodrik his castellan and sent him back up the Kingsroad before they set off for the Twins. That gave her some comfort. _That should be me,_ she thought as she watched him ride off. _I should be going home._ She was home, now, but not the one she had wanted.

Cat entered her room and sat her food on the table by the window. Her chambers overlooked the castle godswood. It was not like the one in Winterfell, all dark and ancient, but instead an airy garden filled with flowers. The weirwood at its center was tall and slender as a maiden, but long dead and devoid of its leaves. She saw Robb standing under it with the other Northern captains, praying.

Her mind returned to Winterfell once more as she ate, this time to that fateful day in the godswood. She never did find Bran’s justice. She had traveled down to King’s Landing with a knife and a message, and had nothing to show for it except Ser Willis Wode. Tyrion slipped from her grasp… but he was not the one they needed. He had been away the day of the fall, hunting with the king. No, the one they needed had stayed behind, and probably nicked his brother’s dagger without his knowledge. That one…

Riverrun’s dungeons lay deep under the castle, where the sound of the river was muffled by dirt and stone. She descended the dark spiral stairway to the heavy wooden door barred with iron. Two of her father’s household knights stood guard. “Lady Stark,” one of them said with a nod, “what brings you to these parts?”

“I want to see him.”

He led her into a dark place of dirt and iron and sandstone. Robb had him locked up in the furthest cell, well away from the men captured in the Whispering Wood and the surprise attack on the camps. The old, hunched-back goaler produced a large, rusty key. The door opened with a loud creak.

Ser Jaime Lannister sat up against the back wall on a bed of yellow straw. He had been stripped of his Kingsguard whites and instead wore a dingy tunic and trousers. The cut on his head had been seen to, and now bore a blood-stained bandage. His eyes opened as the candlelight fell on his face. “Leave us,” she told the others.

“Lady Stark.” Ser Jaime’s voice was hoarse. His smile slid across his face like a knife. “Widowhood becomes you. Your bed must be oh so cold. Is that why you’re here? I’m not at my best but I think I can be of service.”

Cat’s palm itched with the urge to slap him. “Words and words and words. You Lannisters are good at talking.”

The chains on his wrists rattled as he sat forward. “I’m better at killing.”

“You’ve shown that well enough. But I didn’t come here to talk about you.” She stepped inside of the cell. The air was cold and stale. “My son Bran, you remember him, don’t you? How did he come to fall from that tower?”

“Oh, that.” He let out a raspy chuckle. “You carried my brother all the way up the Giant’s Lance and learned nothing?”

“He didn’t do it, the gods showed us that.” He laughed again, a heartier one this time. She closed her eyes briefly. “Unless you mean to accuse your sister of attempted murder, you’d best tell me what happened.” He didn’t answer. She shrugged. “I’ll wait, if you need time to remember. You’ll have plenty,” she motioned to the chains, “you’ve nowhere to go.”

Something changed in him then. The distant candles flashed in his clear blue eyes as he narrowed them. “I pushed him from the window,” he spat. “Is that what you want to hear? I wanted him dead.”

“Oh, I figured that much,” she said sardonically. “Your intent was obvious. What I want to know is why.”

“My sister…” he muttered, shaking his head. “She will have your heads for this.”

Cat nodded. “I’m sure she wants that very badly. But what Queen Cersei wants and what she will get are two very different things. Why did you try to kill my son?”

“Do you mean to kill me then, finally? My head for your husband’s? My father wouldn’t like that.”

“Will chopping your head off bring Ned back to life, Ser?” She shook her own. “No, I think not. Threaten me all you want, but words are wind until deeds are done. Besides, you are still a Lannister. You know you're worth more to us alive than dead.” Cat crossed her arms over her chest. “You would rather die than answer my question?”

“I don’t fear death,” he told her. “The dark is coming for all of us. Why cry about it?”

“Why indeed. Yet you fear to tell me what my son saw you do in that tower.” She shook her head again. “I have known you for many things, Jaime Lannister, but never a craven.” The color drained from his face. Cat stared at him stone-eyed. A fire was burning in her belly. “I see that I will get no answers from you. So be it. I will find the truth, and you’ll rue the day I do. You may not fear death, but know this: if the gods are just, you will rot in the deepest of the seven hells when you die.”

“What gods are those, the ones your husband prayed to? And where were they when he was getting his head chopped off?” He scoffed. “If the gods are so good and just, then why is the world so full of injustice? Riddle me that, Lady Stark.”

“Because of men like you,” she told him.

“There are no men like me,” he said, sitting back, “only me.”

“So you believe.” She turned and pushed his door closed. “I hope that thought keeps you warm down here. It’s known to get dreadful cold at night.”

When she returned to the surface the sky had started to darken. She was going to her father’s rooms when she came across her uncle in the front hall. Her heart softened at the sight of his craggy face. “Uncle Brynden, you’ve finally returned.”

“Cat!” He shooed away the knights he was speaking to and enveloped her in a hug. “Darling girl. Last time I saw you you were half a child. Look at you.”

“It’s so good to see you again,” she said. “Have… have you heard?”

“Yes,” he said with a nod. “He was a good man. I don’t believe this nonsense about treason, not a bit. Something’s not right.” He shook his head and pulled her into his arms again. “Gods, I’m sorry Cat. They won’t get away with this. We won’t let them.”

“I know you won’t.” That _we_ rung in her ears. “If you excuse me, uncle, I need to find my son. You should go see father.”

“Of course,” he said, fiddling with the pin fastening his cloak. It was the Tully trout, carved in jet. “Of course.”

Cat shunned the stairs and instead made her way across the grounds to the guest house, where they were hosting their allegiant lords. The rain had stopped, but the stream running through the gardens had swollen and turned them into half a pond. She found Maege Mormont in the front room with her eldest daughter Dacey. “My lady,” Maege said as they both stood. “You’re well, I hope?”

Cat nodded. “Yes, you are good to ask. Tell me, have you seen Lord Robb about?”

“He’s in the godswood again,” Dacey told her. “He said he needed to be alone, to think.”

She found her son sitting under the weirwood tree with Grey Wind laying at his feet. The sword he polished was new and unblemished. “Uncle Edmure gave it to me,” he told her as she approached. “He said he would get a new handle made, one with a direwolf’s head. Grey like him,” he nodded to his own wolf, “carved in ivory.”

“It will be very handsome, so long as you don’t ruin it hacking away at trees.” The young maple across from them bore the scars of his rage. _Hold that,_ she’d told him the previous night, _keep it, and give it all to the Lannisters._

He ran the oilcloth down the blade once more. It reflected the stony grey color of the sky. “It’s Ice I want. Ice, and Sansa, and Arya, and father’s bones. They can’t have them.”

“Do you mean to march on King’s Landing?” she asked.

“The remainders of Ser Jaime’s men have scattered. We’ve halved the western army. It’s even now, we could take Lord Tywin… but there’s been news, mother. Renly has crowned himself, and Stannis as well. It seems everyone wants to be king now.” He shook his head. “I mean to call a meeting about all this after supper. You should be there. Your voice may be needed.”

“Me?” She looked down. “I… Your generals may not listen to a woman like me.” She was no Mormont, to swing an axe in bearskins.

“I will. Isn’t that what matters? But I won’t force you.” He got to his feet and looked at the sky. “It’s getting dark. Shall I walk you back to the castle?”

“No thank you, dear. I want to stay a while.” Robb nodded, and whistled for Grey Wind to follow. Cat turned her eyes toward the sky. The clouds were starting to thin, and the full moon threw spots of light on the grass.

Half an hour passed before she returned to the castle. She asked to have her meal brought up to her father’s chambers. Vyman had already fed him, and he slept peacefully in his bed. “Do you remember the last war?” she asked him as she spooned tomato soup out of a trencher of bread. “You sent Lysa and I away before the fighting worsened. I hoped I would never live to see another one, but it seems I may.”

She cracked a crab leg open with her hands and dug out the flesh with her knife. “I knew once I crossed the Twins that Robb wouldn’t send me back north, but I thought I might stay with you. Would you like that? I don’t want you to be alone.” She stared at the moonlight reflecting off of the rivers below the castle. “Lysa should be here. She has changed so much, you would barely recognize her. She doesn’t resemble mother so much anymore. Her son is eight now, and growing. I don’t think you have seen him since he was a babe.”

Lord Hoster let out a phlegmy cough. Cat brushed his thin hair off of his forehead. His skin was cool and damp to the touch. “I wish you could see Robb, father. I left a boy in Winterfell, and returned to find a man. Would that you were there to guide him through this. Would that his father was here.” She let out a wistful sigh. “Though, if Ned were still with us we wouldn’t be in this mess. It seems… it seems that I am the only one left.” She took her father’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “Forgive me, father, there’s somewhere I need to be.”

The war council was being held in Riverrun’s great hall. Voices echoed off of the sandstone walls. Her brother Edmure leaned against the doorframe, watching the room fill up. She tapped him on the shoulder and he straightened. “Sister.” He pulled her into a one-armed hug. “You’ve cut a mysterious figure since Robb retook the castle.”

“I’ve been about – with father, mostly.”

He nodded. “That’s good. He would ask about you, when he was awake. He missed you.”

“I’ve missed him too, and you. The last time I saw you, you were shorter than me,” she told him, ruffling his hair.

“Stop that.” He laughed and pushed her hand away playfully. “Yeah, you were twenty-three, I was sixteen, and he was a baby.” He motioned to Robb at the head of the long table in the center of the room. “Look at us now.”

“Indeed,” Cat said with a nod. _Where had the years gone?_

Robb looked up and waved them over. Edmure exhaled deeply. “Let’s get on with this.”

The lords were split longways down the table, with Robb’s Northmen on the right and the riverlords to the left. Theon vacated his seat at Robb’s right hand for her, so she sat between her son and the Greatjon. Theon took the seat on Jon’s right, and at his right was Maege Mormont. So on were Galbart Glover, then Roose Bolton, and grey Rickard Karstark at the end. On the other side, beyond her brother and uncle, were Tytos Blackwood, Jason Mallister, Ser Stevron Frey, and Jonos Bracken, who had joined them after the Whispering Wood.

The council started with news from the Cerwyn splinter Robb had sent down the Kingsroad. A raven had come, confirming that Lord Tywin was marching on Harrenhal. “We ought to meet him there,” Galbart said. “We might be able to end this, or at least him.” There were murmurs of agreement, and Lord Karstark nodded along quietly. Two of his sons were amongst the those lost in the Whispering Wood, and Cat knew he wanted nothing more than revenge.

Lord Mallister shook his head. “Harrenhal’s size makes it just as hard to take as it is to keep up. If Lord Tywin can capture it, I say we let him have his curse and go west to cut off the roads. We can start with the river road, at the Golden Tooth. His reinforcements will be trapped, and he and his men will starve.”

There was another round of agreements, but not from the Greatjon. “We shan’t wait that long. Let us take Casterly Rock, the way the Kingslayer tried to take this castle.”

“I’d love nothing more,” Tytos Blackwood told him, “but the Rock is impregnable. It’s too damn big.”

They continued on like that for a while, unable to decide whether they should march this way or that. Robb was quiet, nodding when he agreed and shaking his head when he didn’t. There was an hour’s worth of debate before the conversation even touched on the two new kings in the realm.

“Does every man with the name Baratheon think he can be king now?” Ser Brynden scoffed.

“I don’t know, but any man opposing Tywin can be a friend,” Roose Bolton said.

“I think our course is clear,” Jonos Bracken told them. “We should swear fealty to King Renly. Highgarden has declared for him already. Between them, us, and the might of Storm’s End, King’s Landing will not stand a chance.”

That was when Robb finally spoke. “Renly is not king.”

A hush fell over the table. “You can’t mean to hold to Joffrey,” said Galbart. “He put your father to death.”

“That doesn’t make Renly king, though. If Bran can’t inherit Winterfell before me, then Renly can’t be king before Stannis.”

“So do you mean to declare us for Stannis then?” Edmure asked.

“I don’t know.” Robb sat forward in his seat and leaned his elbows on the table. “There is still the fact that Joffrey is King Robert’s son. The throne is rightfully his. Neither Stannis nor Renly can inherit before him, or Tommen, or even Myrcella if His Grace abandoned the Targaryen’s inheritance laws. If we go against them to support either brother, then we are traitors.”

“We might already be,” Lady Mormont told him. “Not a lord here has bent his knee to King Joffrey. He had us marked the moment we marched south to free Lord Eddard. What then, if we refuse a little longer, or kneel for someone else? What difference will it make?”

“It might make all the difference, my lady.” All the eyes at the table fell on Catelyn. She inhaled deeply. “My lords, lady, am I to understand that the path to peace is closed to us?”

“Not closed, per say,” said Roose Bolton, “just very bloody.”

“I don’t think it has to be. I heard Lord Galbart say we should march to Harrenhal and end this. There might be a quicker way. Lord Tywin started this war for one son, and King Joffrey will let him continue it for the other. As it stands, his daughter holds my girls in the Red Keep. If the trade can be made, I say we make it, and take ourselves home. There don’t have to be anymore deaths.”

A moment of silence followed as the others considered her words. It was Rickard Karstark that spoke first. “You are suggesting we release the Kingslayer, my lady?” Catelyn gave him a nod. She knew he wouldn’t like what she had said. Ser Jaime had killed his boys. “What did my Torrhen and Eddard die for, if I am to return to Karhold with only their bones? I know war is distressing, for the gentler sex, but a man has a need for revenge.” He unsheathed his longsword and laid it across the table. “This is the only peace I have for Lannisters.”

The murmurs that followed disquieted her. “If we take Harrenhal, or King’s Landing, you may see how gentle a woman really is,” Maege Mormont said with a grunt. Then she turned to Cat. “My lady, I have five daughters of my own, and cannot imagine what I would do if they were in the clutches of someone who hated my family so, but this thing you ask… It cannot be done. The queen will never trade your girls for the Kingslayer. It pains me to say it, but it’s true.”

“That monster Gregor Clegane was let loose on our lands to burn our fields and slaughter our smallfolk,” her uncle, of all people, said next. “Shall we bend our knees to the ones who sent him? What have we fought for, if we put it all back as it was before?”

And another round of murmurs and nods after that. “Aye,” Edmure followed. “I’m sorry, sister, there’s no going back now.”

Cat let out a sigh as the lords resumed their debate. She’d had them, if only for a moment. _Are my daughters too much to ask for?_ Robb was quiet all the while, still listening, considering. _I want Ice, and Sansa, and Arya, and father’s bones,_ his voice echoed in her head, but peace would not get them that, it seemed. _There is no turning back._

Robb and his lords still could not agree on what to do. They wouldn’t kneel to Joffrey, shouldn’t to Renly, and couldn’t to Stannis. They should march on Harrenhal, on King's Landing, on the Golden Tooth and Deep Den. “My lords!” the Greatjon bellowed, when talk turned back to the three kings once more. “Here is what I say to all these kings. Renly Baratheon means nothing to me, and Stannis neither. Why should they rule me and mine from some flowery seat in the south? What do they know of the Wall and the Wolfswood? Even their gods are wrong.”

He shook his head. “It was the dragons we bowed to, three-hundred years ago, but the dragons are all dead. Why shouldn't we rule ourselves?” He reached over his shoulder and pulled out his massive two handed greatsword. “There sits the only king I bend my knee to,” he said as he laid it on the table, the blade pointing to Robb at the end. “The King in the North.”

“Aye, I’ll have peace on those terms,” Lord Rickard said with a nod. “They can keep their red castle and iron chair too.” He picked up his sword and laid it next to the Greatjon’s. “King in the North.”

It was Theon, who laid his down next. “My sword is yours from this day until my last. Your brother, now and always.” The smile on his face was genuine, Cat was surprised to see. “King in the North!”

Galbart Glover followed him, then Maege Mormont with her spiked mace, then Tytos Blackwood and her brother Edmure and the other riverlords, who had never been ruled from Winterfell but said the words all the same. “King in the North!” their voices echoed off the sandstone walls. “King in the North! King in the North!” Candlelight glimmered on steel, and Catelyn grabbed Robb’s hand under the table. He looked at her, but she couldn’t read his expression. Her son. Her king. “King in the North, King in the North, KING IN THE NORTH!”


End file.
